


Simlpe

by NessaMaurice



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:40:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22015024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NessaMaurice/pseuds/NessaMaurice
Summary: Tony and the Avengers are in desperate need of something like a "babysitter" to watch over Loki. He chose staying on Midgard over Asgard's dungeons for the rest of his days as his punishment for what he did in New York. Luckily they found you! A totally normal, simple woman in hope you could be the one that actually doesn't quit after a week or two and show Loki "how to human". But after a while, things start twisting...
Relationships: Loki (Marvel)/Reader
Comments: 5
Kudos: 36





	1. Chapter 1

"We need someone totally random." Tony broke the silence in the room. Every gaze was on him now. "Not someone with any special training, crazy gifts or hyper specialized knowledge."

"Why?" Steve simply asked.

"Your brother", Tony said turning to Thor and pointing at him, "has an enormous ego. If he has to stay here, we got to get him... let's say humbled. He will stay here in the compound. He is even willing to cooperate, so I guess we won't need shackles. At least not all the time. We just need someone reliable staying in the same room with him. Like, a babysitter. Someone simple, responsible from the neighbourhood who you would trust to look after your children because you know she'll just tuck them into bed asap and spend a nice evening watching Netflix or reading books while eating chips."

"You think it should be a woman?" Natasha mentioned.

"Did I say she? Ah yes, I did. Probably because when I think of next-door-babysitters I automatically think of girls. Women. Sorry." Tony immediately corrected himself as he noticed the raised eyebrow of Natasha.

"Couldn't it be that he would try to... I don't know... something like to trick a woman to do what he wants? Is he... um..." Bruce struggled to speak his mind.

"You mean like a seducer to women?" Thor assumed, followed by an amused little laugh. "No do not worry about that matter. I have known him my whole life and playing such games with women was never in his interest, even if it would have been useful to his plans. And I would say a woman would be best, he mostly behaves more controlled and civilized to women in charge than to men."

"Alrighty then!" Tony clapped his hands to end this meeting that almost seemed like it would never end. With everybody feeling relieved to have come to a solution, the tense in the room ebbed away.

"Barton", Tony addressed to the agent in the corner of the room, "We need someone trustworthy. A woman. Someone staying away from drama. A at least somehow balanced one. And she will have to move to the compound for quite a while, so sort out every woman having responsibilities at home or such. The best would be someone who already works for me, check all our employees first, maybe we are lucky."

Clint simply nodded and left the room, but not without grabbing a big mug of coffee on the leave. All headed to the door, but Thor caught Tony by grabbing his arm and stopping him. He waited a second when all the other Avengers were gone.

"Thank you, Stark. It is very generous and honorable of you and of Midgard to offer my errant brother a second chance after all what he did to your realm. There is clearly good in him. Buried under mischief and lies but somewhere it is. Maybe a simple person is all he needs to learn that 'simple' is nothing bad. It is hard for him to deal with his banishment from his home but it was his own choice and he preferred this over the dungeons of our palace. It took him quite a while to make this decision."

"Yeah. It's okay. No one likes to have a pissed-off brother being kept in the basement." Tony said, patting Thor on the shoulder while leaving the room.

***

With one hand you fumbled for your alarm clock to put in on snooze while hiding under the blanket. Sleep drunk you tried to get your brain working as a little wave of panic shot through you. Turning over to your clock you silently cursed into your pillow and pushed yourself up. You already wanted to get up 10 minutes ago but pressed snooze once too often. Again. You speeded up your morning routine a little to catch the lost minutes you sacrificed to Morpheus. 

"This day's gonna be crap." You mumbled to yourself while entering the compound and shuffling over to the reception.

"Sweets, turn your bitch face off, you're at work."

The voice of your coworker Jackie (but you'd rather address her as your best friend than coworker) ripped you out of your thoughts.

"Hey Babe. Sorry." You gave her your poorest apology smile.

"Pressed snooze too often again, huh?" She tried to hold back a broad smile while you walked around the giant reception desk, heavy eye-rolling.

"Shut up. Tea's ready?"

"Do we know us since yesterday?" She pouty answered, handing you your favorite mug. You snatched it almost too energetically from her hand, inhaling the steam rising from it and closing your eyes.

"Aw, yeah. Much better." You put it on the desk and went to the back to hang your coat. Walking by you caught your own glance in the mirror, stopped and returned to it to check your appearance. You fixed some loose strands of hair and spotted your septum piercing. Cursing at yourself that you forgot to take it out once again you turned it up into your nose to hide it. If you'd take it out right now you would just lose it, like the other 4 piercings before. Pulling on the collar of your shirt and fiddling on your chocker necklace you quickly checked yourself over again and stepped outside to the reception desk. You were so lucky that you and your colleagues came to the glorious arrangement that you were in charge of the visit-reservation-referring-emails and wouldn't have to answer phone calls. Every time you heard the melodic ringing it sent a little jolt through your guts but were relieved the same moment, knowing that it was not your task to answer it. You never knew why phone calls put you in such a state but you didn't really bother to find out. You went to sit down on your office chair, totally focused on your steaming mug that stood there longing for your cold hands to get warmed up by its heat but stopped mid-motion and turned your head to the left. Your eyes wandered the spacious entrance hall. Since there were still 10 minutes before the Avengers compound opened up to visitors, press and business the only light was the natural dim dawn falling in through the huge window front. You almost jumped a little as the lighting was turned on, as always on time. 

"Everything alright, Sweet Pea?" Your friend appeared from behind you, what make you jump a little again.

"What? Oh yeah. Sorry. I thought there was something. Getting a little paranoid after a week of holiday at home." You laughed at her. As you finally sat down you couldn't resist to look over your shoulder again and search the enormous hall. It wasn't helpful that you had that feeling of being watched since almost 3 weeks now. At first you didn't take it very serious. Your workplace was permanently full of people and CCTV. But the feeling deep down in your stomach grew bigger each day. In the end you were so happy to eventually have a week all on your own. You spent it most of the time at home, doing all the things you wanted to do for a long time. You took some art classes in portraying persons, read 2 books, listened to music constantly, ordered to much stuff from Amazon cause you had so much time browsing stuff you didn't need, even could get yourself to take some walks in the nearby park and enjoy the autumn colours. But, much to your dismay, that feeling of being followed by something or someone didn't cease. You spoke to your therapist at your monthly meeting about this last week. She said not to take it too serious but that you'll come back to that point next month. 

You softly shook your head to get rid of the thoughts and put your bag on the floor beneath your desk with a loud thud. Jackie turned her head and looked at you, then at your bag.

"What the hell is in there? Thor's hammer?"

You tried to bat her hand away as she grabbed your bag and opened it. Her gaze rose in played shock to meet your eyes. She pulled a giant book out of it without interrupting her steady look at you. You couldn't help but blush, roll your eyes and laugh.

"Oh. My. God. Didn't they have a bigger book than this? Why are your dragging this monster with you to work?" She looked at the title and stuttered a little while reading it out loud, a little too loud since your other colleagues turned their heads, poorly hiding their smiles.

"Antiquitates Iudaicae" She looked at you again, one brow raised. "Seriously?"

You couldn't hold back your snort at that look on her face. Hectically you nabbed your stuff from her hands. "Shut up bitch, that's for my lunch break."

Unfortunately that explanation didn't help much to stop her amusement because now she helplessly had to cover her mouth while she laughed into her hands.

"Damn girl, you crazy."

"I know. You love that."

"Of course I do. Borrow me that book when you're through. And if I lost my sight by that time, you can read it to me when your granny glasses will be strong enough."

Smiling you turned to your computer and turned it on. It was about time, your small interruption cost you precious minutes to start your working routine before the doors opened to all the amazed visitors, screaming school groups and snoopy press people.

While waiting for your computer to come to live (which took quite longer than you'd expect when working for a technology genius), Jackie slapped your shoulder.

"Oh I totally forgot to fill you in on the latest gossip. When you were on holiday, a cute guy from accounting sat down next to me during lunch and asked where you are."

"Whaaaat? You're kidding."

"Nah-ah! He said he wanted to say hi to you after he saw you several times in the cafeteria and thought you would show up just a little later. He feared you may have just chucked your job after two more days without seeing you. I tell you, he has the bluest eyes I've ever seen. If I were unwed, I'd totally be jealous. I promised not to tell you. Ha ha. As if I would not tell you."

"Aw come on. Now I will never be able to relax during lunch time again." You batted her arm with the back of your hand.

"Oh Sweets, you're much too old to be nervous around men."

"Uhm, you know who you talking to, right?"

Her only answer was just a vicious smile as she turned to the already ringing phone.

The morning went on as usual. Tons of emails, greeting visitors and groups, handing forms over the counter, smiling, tea drinking.

Your stomach began to rumble just as your break was due. You checked yourself in the mirror again, this time a bit more precisely. As usual, you weren't too pleased with what you saw. Catching that thought, you very silently said to yourself "But I love myself anyway" just as your therapist taught you. You hoped that one day you'd eventually believe your own words, but somehow they helped you relax a bit, though. You stretched your back, grabbed your stuff and headed to the cafeteria. As you saw its entrance, you felt blood rush to your cheeks and cursed yourself for blushing so easily. But before you could step through the door, someone stopped you by softly grabbing your arm.

You turned around to say something but no sound left your open mouth as you looked up into the face of Clint Barton.

"Miss Y/N, I'm sorry to stop you from getting your lunch, but Mr. Stark would like to speak to you."


	2. Chapter 2

Your head just did not keep quiet. 

Oh my god, what have I done. I don't want to be kicked. I really like my job. Don't fire me, oh lord have mercy with my poor soul.

Your mind went on and on while you followed the famous Hawkeye through corridors of the compound you never saw before. You stepped into a lift and the doors closed. You noticed that he did not push any button but the elevator started to move anyway. You glanced over to him and caught your own reflection in the mirror of the lift wall. Embarrassed you shut your mouth that still was open. You stared at your shoes (which were pretty dirty as you just noticed) and you wished so much you would not be wearing your favorite Star Wars shirt under your cardigan right now (the combination looked really good and the cardigan hid your nerdiness) as the heat in your cheeks did not stop rising. 

"You don't have to be nervous."

You audibly gasped as Clint Barton pulled you out of your thoughts. You looked at him from the corner of your eye and saw him smirking. You wished you could bang your head against the wall.

He leant a little over to you and lowered his voice. "You are not in trouble. We just have an offer for you." He leant back again. "But Tony wants to present it to you himself. Typical." He rolled his eyes really hard. He noticed that you had turned your head to him and you must have looked a bit puzzled cause he said "Well, if you knew Tony you'd understand what I mean."

"Oh, I know." You said out of a reflex and immediately pressed your lips together in regret.

Now he turned his head to you, asking you with his eyes.

"I, uhm, I know him from the TV in interviews and sometimes he crosses the entrance hall, followed by several persons most of the time and, uhm, well, he has a loud voice so it's not hard to hear what he says and how he says it and... uh" You paused to find the right words to say what you were thinking without giving them a reason to fire you now, "I think he likes to set the tone." You smiled a bit as you compared your thoughts with your words and were proud of yourself. Quickly you added "And of course he has every right to do so, he's a genius and deserves every attention he gets."

After a very, very long second of silence, all Hawkeye did was let out a little snorty laugh.

Shortly after the lift stopped. Just before the doors opened, Clint Barton patted you a bit roughly on your back, which made you stumble a small step forwards, and said "Don't worry, you'll do great."

He stepped outside and you just followed him. Eventually he stopped, opened a door, held it open for you and waited for you to get in first. You took a deep breath and went inside.

In the meeting room was a long table with several chairs around it. The left side of the room was just one giant window. In the other corner of the room stood a man in jeans and a dark t-shirt (which turned out to be a Black Sabbath tour shirt) looking out of the window. As you entered he turned around.

"Ah, you got to be Miss Y/N" he almost sang as he crossed the room quickly to get to you, stretching out his hand. You stared a moment too long at the hand, now being in front of you, before you grabbed and shook it.  
"Uhm, yeah, hello Mr. Stark. What an honor to meet you." You stammered while smiling a bit helplessly.

"Oh, let's keep it casual if you don't mind. Tony." He grinned right into your face which just worsened your blushing. You assumed you just reached level tomato red. A very short moment his facial expression shifted just a little bit. He focused on your face, seemed to search certain features. Just as if he knew you from somewhere. But that lasted just like two seconds before he returned to his childish grin.

"Sure!" You cleared your throat; that came out a bit too enthusiastic, "Sure. A pleasure. Oh and of course, it's just Y/N to you."

"Alright! Sit down please." 

He gestured you to one of the chairs. While you sat down he pulled a small plastic bag out of nowhere and offered it to you. 

"Cashews?"

You couldn't help but smile and grabbed some, thankful to have something to do with your hands besides fumbling on your clothes.

"Okay. Barton?"

He simply nodded, waved someone to come in and joined you on the chair next to you. You simply smiled at him, chewing on your cashews as you heard the door closing and looked to the entrance again. You literally almost choked on the kernels as you gasped "Whoa fuck!" Right there in front of you stood no one less than Thor himself. You pressed your hand on your mouth to stop you from saying more swearing and spitting the food around. 

The broadest of smiles in his face, he just said "Mylady.", leaning slightly forwards into a little bow.

You silently watched him getting closer to you with just a few steps. He took your hand and placed a decent kiss on its back.

Staring at him in all his armour, surrounded by some strange sort of glory, you swallowed hard.

"Hello! Uhm, Thor, I guess?" You smiled nervously. You noticed all the smirking from the other two men.

"You guess right. Your name is Lady Y/N, right?"

"Just Y/N, yes, thank you."

"Okay!" Tony said while clapping in his hands. "Everybody's here. So, Y/N, let me explain what's going on here. Thor, sit down please, otherwise she will just keep staring at your shiny hair." Your brain took a second to process what you were hearing and immediately turned your attention to Tony.

"Fine. Y/N, I am sorry to say that, but over the last month we observed some of our employees without informing them and one of them was you."

"I knew it!" you whispered to yourself, a bit too loud. "I'm sorry. It's okay, I don't mind."

Tony grinned a moment before he continued. "You noticed that, very good. No one else did. I'm honest, you are not our first choice for this job."

"She was mine." Clint interrupted. Tony's answer was just a dark glare before he continued.

"We tried it out with two other employees but none of them could handle the task, they gave up after a few days. I have to admit, this job is not easy. But on the other hand, it is pretty easy. First of all, I have to ask you a serious question and you have to answer it absolutely honestly. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir. Tony. Sorry."

Ignoring your stuttering he sat down on the table right next to you. His gaze turned a bit darker, steady focusing on your face.

"Is there anything special about you? ... Not like you are not unique and this stuff", he added as you furrowed your brows on that strange question. "I mean, do you have any gifts? Super specialized knowledge we couldn't find out during observation?"

"Oooh" you let out in understanding, "Like telekinesis and stuff? Or a secret PhD in astrophysics? Noo, no, clearly not. I'm totally normal. I'm just a secretary. The only talent I have is that I can draw, well, not that bad."

"She's a very skilled artist" Clint suddenly corrected you. "But that is not important for the mission. No danger here."

"Great! Do you have any responsibilities that bind you to any person? Or maybe a pet?"

A bit confused you said, "Uhm, no..? I'm single and all I have is a salt water aquarium. I don't have any relatives to maybe look after, neither. If that is what you meant. I don't have any relatives at all. ... My family died early and I since had no other relatives to look after me, a friend of my mother adopted me. But she died some years ago so... yeah. Just me." You added in explanation and stopped your own rambling.

Tony glanced quickly over to Clint who nodded sharply.

"Fish tank, okay that's no problem. In that case, I hand the word over to our big blonde one." Tony said pointing with his open hand at Thor.

"Thank you. Mylady, you surely know of the attack of the Chitauri lately. And I am sure you know that my brother Loki was in account of that. I took him back to our homeworld, Asgard, to obtain justice for all he did. He was offered two choices; to spend the rest of his days in our dungeon as a prisoner or to leave Asgard forever and stay on Midgard. If he would choose the second option, as soon as he would do any harm to Midgard or its people, he would be sentenced to death. At first, he wanted to stay on Asgard. But that... it did not work very well for him. He became more and more miserable, so I convinced him to take the other option. I was able to win our father over to put up that option again and now he is here. But after all he did, it is hard to trust him, especially now at the beginning. So Stark was so noble to offer my brother to stay here. We all got missions to look after, we cannot watch him all the time. So we decided to introduce him to someone to get him used to a life on Midgard."

"Okay, ehm, wow", started, words failing you, "But, when I'm allowed to ask, why no SHIELD agent? I guess he's kinda... dangerous? How can you be sure he won't try to trick or kill me?"

"That's simple", Tony said, "because you are just a normal person. Sorry, no insult", he added lukewarm, "Therefore you are of no use for him. I'm... I'm sorry, do we know us from somewhere? I can't shake off the feeling we already met."

"I don't think so? Oh, I'm working here down at the reception, maybe that's why I seem familiar. You never spoke to me but you often cross the entrance hall and I sit there all day. Well, most of the time I'm hiding behind the desk. Not that I don't want to hide, it's just because I'm in charge of the emails most of the time so my attention is to the screen. Uhm, yeah." You grew so hot you wished you could take of that cardigan without revealing your geek.

"Ah yeah. That'll be it. Are you okay? You look like you would faint."

"What? Oh, no, sorry, it's just a little hot", you held your ice cold hands to your cheeks, "I've never fainted once in my life. Everything's fine."

Tony kept staring at you for just a moment longer before jumping off the desk and turning to the coffee machine next to the door.

"Alright! Any questions?"

Unwieldy you took off your cardigan finally and try to hide the broad STAR WARS writing on it with your arms without looking totally awkward. You failed.

"Uhm, yeah. What exactly do I have to with him? Entertain him? Show him our world?"

With a steaming mug in his hand he turned around again and stared at your shirt for a second before answering.

"Love that shirt. First of all, try not to kill him. That could be the hardest part."

"How does it all work?"

"You will have to move in here. We have something like a little flat. We all live here. And with 'we all' I mean the avengers. Everyone has their own space, but we have a common room with a kitchen and stuff. We're like a big, crazy patchwork family." He grinned quickly before taking a big sip from his mug.

"Oh. Wow. Okay. That's a big move. What happens to my stuff? How long will all this take? Will you fire me completely when I mess this up or can I return to my reception desk when I can't do this? What if the others of you don't like me? What if I'm totally useless for you? How can I be sure your brother, what was his name? Loki? Right. How can I be sure Loki won't kill me?"

"You can take as much stuff with you as you want, we have space enough. We don't know how long it will take, probably several months the least. No, of course not, if you want to quit this you can get back to your emails. Don't worry about the others, when we can handle each other we are able to get along with a regular person. No matter how this will turn out, we will have advantage from learning so there is no chance for being useless. He got a little receiver injected under his skin and you will get a bracelet with an emergency button. If you feel threatened, press it once, we will get notified and be there within a minute. If you are in complete distress, keep it pressed for at least 3 seconds and Loki will get... a little electronic tickle. In that case, we also get notified but he won't be able to move for a few minutes. I know, that sounds fun, but just use this in case of emergency."

While processing what you heard you realized you relaxed completely. Resting the ankle of one foot on the knee of the other, you sprawled out on the chair, eating the cashews from your hand. You immediately snapped back to attention, not wanting to be taken as disrespectful.

"Relax Y/N. Don't act like I'm the president. I'm just a normal man. With a genius mind and unbelievable abilities, but - just a man."

You caught Clint next to you rolling his eyes, facepalming.

"So, what do you say? Interested? Oh, and of course you will get paid for your service. Catering and all essentials you need are on me. Don't worry about that. And we have room for your fishies."

"Ehm, well, it sounds really exciting. And since nothing ever happens to me, I'm seduced to say yes right away. But,", you held up one finger, "I would like to meet Loki first. Oh, and I want to know why the other two quit."

"We can arrange that. And they quit because he pissed them off too much. No life threat, he can just be a little pain in the ass. Uhm, do you want to meet him now?"


	3. Chapter 3

You followed the three exceptional men through more corridors and lifts, very careful not to step on Thor's cloak. Though it appeared a bit over the top compared to the surrounding environment, you caught yourself being a bit envious. After a while you entered a big, open room with sofas in the middle, windows all around and a giant (to say the least) kitchen to the right. Two persons were standing in the kitchen, leaning on the counter, chatting. Another one sat on one sofa, reading a book. At first you unintentionally were hidden behind the three men in front of you. The attention of the other persons were drawn to them. A ginger woman in a tight black jumpsuit was the first to ask what all of them wanted to know.

"And? Do we have someone crazy enough to do this?" She said with a smirk.

"We'll see, ask herself." Tony answered, stepping aside as he noticed you behind.

The ginger woman went even a bit paler than she naturally was. Embarrassed laughing she swiftly crossed the room to greet you.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry. Hi, I'm Natasha, nice to meet you."

You shook her hand, smiling.

"Oh no problem! Not the first time I've been called crazy. I usually take it as a compliment."

"That is an attitude I come across not that often." A cupboard of man was moving towards you, next to Natasha and shaking your hand with a really tight grip. "Hi, I'm Steve."

From behind him a smaller, dark haired guy showed up. He took your hand as well to shake it and welcome you, his hand much stronger than you first expected. "Hello, I'm Bruce, a pleasure." A shy smile flitted over his face.

"Wow, it's such an honor to meet you all. Thank you for everything you do for us." You were searching for words suiting this event.

"Sorry, what was your name?" Natasha asked with a lovely smile.

"Oh my gosh, I'm sorry! I'm Y/N, very happy to meet you all."

"So, you are sure you wanna do this?" Steve asked with a little concerned face.

"I'm really tempted to, yes. But I would like to meet him first."

"So, after you got to know everyone else living here, I would like to guide you to the rooms that may be yours. My brother stays there most of the time." Thor laid a big hand on your back, slightly pushing you in a certain direction. You waved at the others like a dork and let him lead you to the said rooms. They appeared to be a little flat inside this other Avengers flat, except the kitchen. It had a nice, sun-drenched living room, two bedrooms (being opposite of each other) two small bathrooms, accessible through the bedrooms. In the furthest corner of the living room, from a wing chair facing out of the window front, a voice sounded over to you.

"Have you forgotten how to knock, brother?" Something sarcastic, and just a little bit sleazy was swinging with his words.

"Loki, I would like to introduce you to our new friend in the team." Thor proclaimed happily.

You heard the sound of a book being slammed shut and a big figure rose from the chair. You could only see his silhouette against the bright daylight while you suddenly felt like a deer standing in the headlights of a car, unable to move. Something about this person, really slowly pacing towards you, made your blood boil and sending little shivers down your spine at the same time. He was now standing right in front of you, but because of the low autumn sun shining in you still could not focus him. Instead you just looked up into this black void of the shadow where his face should be and blinked a few times like a sheep. All you could sense was his intimidating presence and his scent. It was like fresh linen and sun-warmed leather.

"JARVIS, please screen the windows a bit." Thor ordered to an unknown person in the room.

"Of course, sir." A British, electronic voice answered out of nowhere.

In the same moment the windows turned a little bit darker but without blocking the view. You blinked again a few times to adjust your sight to the new level of light, looking on the floor. You looked up again and breathed in audibly, stepping a bit backwards which caused you to bump into Thor behind you. Loki used the moment as you were looking on the floor to come slightly closer to startle you, successfully. In this second, when you were looking up in his face again, now seeing in clearly, his green-blue eyes seemed to pierce right through you.

"Loki, please behave." Thor scolded his brother, pushing him a bit backwards with one hand so you had enough space to breathe again.

"Oh, what did I do? I just wanted to share a closer look on my new... companion." His voice was sleek and faking innocence. He moved away a bit, gazing on you. Silence spread until he spoke again.

"Can't she speak?" Raising his eyebrows at his brother, one a little higher than the other before he slowly turned away again.

Snapping back from your bewildered state you leant a bit towards him, stretching out your hand.

"Sorry. Hi. I'm Y/N." You shared a genuine smile.

Looking back at you again, he seemed to study your face for some eternal seconds, then his eyes dropped to your hand and back to your face again. He took your hand, hesitated for a moment. Then he rose it to his face, meeting it on your eye level, placed a very soft, short kiss on it and looked you right in the eyes.

"Highly delighted to make your acquaintance, mylady. I hope you will stay with me a bit longer than your predecessors."

"That only depends on you." Thor said from behind you.

Loki gave his brother a smirk that you could not interpret. Dilatory he let go of your hand, straightened up again and moved away from the two of you. Now you had the chance to take a look on his appearance. He was wearing something that looked like a long, sleeveless coat, half leather - half fabric, over a dark green tunic and soft and leathery trousers. His raven black hair was neatly combed back and drew soft curls in his neck.

Heading back to the winged chair he said "She looks like she may last for a while." Before sitting down again, he glanced over his shoulder back to you and gave you a short look that sent some shivers down your spine.

"Uhm, well, he seems to be quite nice...? I guess..?" You finally said to Thor.

"Wonderful! Do you need help gathering your belongings? I have to leave Midgard by tomorrow again, but I'm sure Stark can get some... servants to help you."

"Do not consider taking too much with you. You will leave sooner as you can guess." Loki said without looking up from his book, sitting in that big chair. Almost dying away he added "Exceedingly few can bear me."

"I'm tempted to make a try!" You called over to him. Thor looking surprised by your answer to that comment, you simply added "Ah. Have seen worse fellows. And I really want to give it a try. I would be pretty dumb to let go of a chance like this-" Your gestured at the room and at Thor.

***

You got well prepared for your "mission". Your stuff was quickly collected and moved to your room. Even your aquarium was set up properly and none of your fish died on the transport. The Avengers gave you all the details on what exactly happened in New York. We got every minute of CCTV containing his appearance. Thor told you personal details of his brother and their life in Asgard. And that they just recently had lost their mother. You soon determined that your new roommate had to be a really dangerous and broken person. Sure, everything he did was really bad and there were no excuses for it. But taking together all parts of what you heard of him made a bit of a picture. And you just loved to decode complicated persons (starting with yourself). So you wanted to use this opportunity to get behind this elegant, predatory facade a bit.

The day you eventually moved in came. The Avengers were really cute, they made a little welcoming party for you. You even were allowed to invite guests yourself, but your social contacts were very limited. The only close friend was Jackie, so you only invited her. To say that she was hyper excited was the least. You were pretty nervous, too. You may had spent some time with those famous persons, but it didn't really ease the flurried tension in your body when you were near them. You were just slowly relaxing around them, though they gave you every reason to chill. They behaved totally family with you; explained inside jokes, ribbed each other, laid arms on your shoulders when acting like they would fight for your attachment. You welcomed Jackie with a tight hug as she arrived.

"My god, this whole thing is a pure maze! Did some young boys cross your way, running, asking if you saw any Grievers?"

"Oh just shut up and don't embarrass me in front of the others, kay?" You laughed and slightly pushed her to the side.

You entered the common room, the atmosphere cheerful. Tony paced the room towards you two and lead you to the middle.

With a broad smile you looked around to see that everyone was present already (even Loki left his rabbit hole, but he sat at the other end of the room in a corner, keeping everyone under surveillance) before you introduced your friend.

"Hey everyone! Thank you for all this, this is just so awesome! This-" you pushed your friend in front of you "-is my best friend, Babydoll. ---"

A very long second of silence spread before everyone broke into laughter.

"Good that I didn't embarrass you." Jackie hissed.

"Well, that's a catchy name." Clint just said, laughing into his beer bottle.

You assumed your face just turned into a flame according to the hot, burning feeling in your cheeks.

"Oh, my god. Sorry. Jackie. She's Jackie, of course. Could somebody please just kill me."

"No worries, N/Y. I just hope we get nicknames from you as cool as this one." Steve said, patting you hard on the back. Turning to your friend he asked: "I there's a story to that?"

The questions pushed her out of her own embarrassment and looked up from behind her hand where she hid her face.

"Uhm, yeah. Sure there is." Glancing over to you from her peripheral you noticed the sinister smirk.

"No, no don't make it worse." You whispered to her as you recognized her preparing revenge.

"The first day she worked at the reception I caught her several times staring at me. I already thought she was kinda into me. So about the 8th time I asked her if I could help her somehow. She just said 'Oh, what? No! Sorry. I'm Y/N. It's just that you totally look like Babydoll from Sucker Punch. And because I now that movie we became friends immediately. So from that day on I was Babydoll, and she was Sweet Pea. Another character from that movie."

Meanwhile she told that awkward story you were sunken into an armchair, facepalming and peeking through your fingers to hide your blushing. Everybody just went "Awww, Sweet Pea!", looking and smiling at you. You just wished you could kick your friend in the shin really hard. But it turned out that was a nice icebreaker; they just went on chatting and the attention on you ebbed away. Eventually you dared to stand up and sneak over to the kitchen. You opened the fridge to snatch a beer. As you closed it again you literally jumped as Loki suddenly stood there, totally still as if he was there all the time. He glanced down at you with an intensity that gave you the creeps.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Did I scare you, Sweet Pea?" he said low and soft with that smirk you already knew.

"Shut up Loki, only she's allowed to call me that. Think of your own nickname for me-" You immediately regretted the words as they left your lips. His smirk turned into a big grin.

"Oh, what a friendly invitation. I will surely do that." He simply said before he walked past you very closely, almost touching but close enough that his fresh, warm scent fogged your senses for a second. Something in that fragrance made your blood pressure rise a bit. I made you feel like you wanted to curl up on top of a freshly made bed in the warm, low autumn sun that shines through big windows while it's cold and windy outside. You caught yourself dwelling in that thought with eyes closed. You chided yourself, shook your head but couldn't resist to shyly look after him over your shoulder. Of course he just stood there, looking you dead in the eye because he just knew you would look back. You silently cursed and took a long sip from the bottle.

The evening went on in an upbeat mood, you and your friends just had a nice and funny time together. Little chat groups formed up and dispersed into new ones. At some point you ended up with Thor. The alcohol already hit on you and you tried hard not to slur. You leant towards him and you beckoned him with one finger to do the same. Conspiratorially you whispered:

"Does your brother never drink alcohol? Does he even drink? Or eat? Or does he simply suck the energy of other living creatures by sinister staring at them?"

Thor slightly giggled as he answered "No no, he does eat and drink like everyone, be without worry for your soul. But he soon learned that alcohol has the same effect on him than on anybody, his inhibition threshold lowers more and more and he slowly loses control and that just totally terrifies him. He is used to have his way with words, they are his weapon."

"Is that why all of you keep interrupting him as soon as he opens his mouth?" You blurted before taking another sip.

Thor first smiled and wanted to answer as he realized that what you said was true. Normally you would have known that this could get sensitive now but being half drunk wasn't helpful.

"Yeah I know, I mean, I don't really. I haven't spent that much time here by now. But it seemed to me that you cut off almost every sentence he' starting. No blame on you, he had caused a shitload of damage only by talking. But I can imagine this may be the reason why he hides away all the time and is even less interested in socializing with you all than he would usually be."

You took another sip, looking in Thor's baffled face as the cogs in your brain slowly moved.

"Oh. Sorry. Did I say something wrong? Dammit, I'm so sorry, it's hard to contain oneself when the brain is on energy saving mode." You honestly tried to apologize but every word that fell off your mouth was gibberish. But Thor just smiled sadly and grabbed your shoulder.

"Do not worry Y/N, alcohol often reveals a truth a sober mind would keep to itself, but that does not have to be a bag thing. And you are right. Sadly, that keeps on happening to him his whole life. It is very hard to break this habit. I am not known for enduring patience."

"Hahaha, no you are really not." You laughed first, but started to apologize again right away "Oh my god, I'm so sorry, I'm totally gonna shut up right now. Please don't grill me with a lightning."

All Thor did was to laugh openheartedly and pat you on the back while he stood up to fetch another drink.

It was late already, your friend left an hour ago and you started to think going to bed would be a good idea. You entertained the whole team with you alcohol induced honesty and rambling and you finally began to feel very comfortable with all of them. Except for Loki, who you would spend the most of your time with. He didn't leave his quiet corner, but watched all of you attentively. Every time you looked over to him your gazes met instantly. The first few times you shared a smile, but all you got as a response was his deadly staring. After a while you intently tried not to look at him anymore because it was not easy for your to feel his antipathy towards you. But finally, before you wanted to go to your room, you decided you wanted to approach him. You stood up and turned to the corner where he was resting the whole evening, but he was gone. You didn't know what you expected but you were surprised that you felt a little sad. You turned to say goodbye to the others. Everyone of them drew you into a hug (even the shy Bruce managed one, though it was a bit awkward; obviously he didn't hug people very often but that made you just appreciate it even more) and you headed to your rooms. Your small living room was dark. You could only see a very dim light shining through beneath Loki's door. You assumed he would be reading and didn't want to disturb him. You went into your personal bathroom and got ready for sleep. After make-up removing and teeth brushing you slipped into one of your short pj's, exited the bathroom and turned on a small light next to your bed. You let out a little strangled scream as you suddenly had Loki's face right in front of yours.


	4. Chapter 4

"Oh. My. God. Are you serious?!" You hissed at him after catching some breath. 

"I am sorry. I didn't intend to scare you."

"Yeah. Sure. That's why you silently sneaked into my room and waited for me in the dark like a predator. Do you have thermographic vision as well? ... Ah, nevermind.” You added after looking in his slightly puzzled face. “What do you want from me that you had to lurk for me?"

"I just thought you wanted to speak to me."

"...what?"

"Before you said goodnight to everyone, it looked like you wanted to speak to me."

"Oh! ... You saw that? Why didn't you just wait in the living room or, I don't know, knock?" You stared at him with a questioning glance. But then he just stood up and went to leave. You grabbed his arm to make him stay. He stopped and looked down on you over his shoulder. Your annoyance immediately ceased as you saw his face. He tried really hard to keep his dangerous gaze, but behind all that you saw some kind of... vulnerability. You knew that look. That feeling.

"Please. Stay. Come, sit down." You said softly, stepping backwards to your bed, sitting down and tearing on his arm a bit to make him follow you.

"First of all, if this should work, please stop make me jump every time I walk around a corner. I hate it being spooked all the time." His response was just a small smile as he shortly looked down on the floor. He looked back at you again as you continued. "And yes, I wanted to speak to you. Why did you hide away all evening? Why not participate at least a bit?"

"Your kind of having a festive events seems pathetic to me. I'm used to more glorious feasts than this."

"Oh, come on, Loki. Stop that arrogant babbling. I may not have any superpowers, but I am a good observer. At least, I guess so. I gathered some information about you in the past time." Your voice went calmer, curling one leg beneath you, you turned straight towards him. You suppressed the urge to touch his hand or his leg because you assumed it would maybe chase him away. But you wanted him to see that you were honest. "I am really sorry for all that happened to you. It surely does not justify what you did here on earth. That is a burden you'll have to carry on for the rest of your really long life. But I want you to know that I don't judge you. Who am I to do so? And I think you are showing some really great strength to stay here on Earth, but without ruling it. I hope I'm not wrong that you really want to live here. And when you are ready to let go of your conceited attitude" you now said in a lighter voice, patting him hard on the back, "I will be pleased to show you how we simple peasants waste our time here on this planet." You just smiled at him while his eyes ran over your face. You almost physically felt the intensity of his gaze, trying to read you. To find some hidden malice in your words, your face, your eyes. But there were none. You truly meant what you said. Eventually you were the first one to look away. You pushed him off your bed towards the door.

"Okay, enough evil and intense staring for today. Believe me or not, it's up to you. I don't care. All I care about is the soft warmth and tight embrace of Morpheus.” His look went all puzzled again ... “Dammit Loki, in the living room is a laptop, just look it up, or wait until tomorrow, I'm too tired to explain it now. Good night!"

You quickly closed the door behind him after you shoved him outside. Leaning with your back to the door, you silently said to yourself, "For someone known to have a Silver Tongue he didn't say that much by now." You took a deep breath and could finally fall into your bed.

***

"Good morning, Miss. I hope you had a pleasant sleep." The artificial voice scared you right out of a strange dream. You pulled your left arm back under the covers to warm it up. Drowsily you searched for your alarm clock. "Where the hell am I? Ah. Yeah. Right. Avengers and stuff. Ehm... Sorry AI, I forgot your name."

"JARVIS, Miss."

"Yeah. JARVIS." You hid your eyes under the other arm now. "What time is it?"

"5:30 am, Miss."

"WHAT? Are you serious? Why on earth do you wake me at such an inhumane time?" You couldn't stop the whining tone in your voice, considering how dead tired you were.

"I have the instructions to inform your as soon as Loki leaves his bed room. And that just happened."

"Really? Why does he need so little sleep?" You lamented more to yourself, but directly got an answer.

"He didn't sleep at all, Miss."

"What?" You threw your arm aside and laboriously pushed yourself up on your elbows. "He didn't sleep at all? How do you know?"

"I keep running medical scans over all of the inhabitants of Mr. Starks personal rooms. The parameters show that he was awake all the time while you were asleep, but he did not leave his room until now. I assume he wants to watch the sunrise again."

"Again?"

"Yes, Miss. He always leaves his room in the morning to sit in the winged chair and watch the sun rise, usually with a cup of tea, but it looks like he skipped the tea today."

"Aw come on... Why can't he be a spoiled prince that sleeps until 10 am?" You let your head fall back into your neck, moaning. "I assume I have to get up as soon as he gets up?"

"Yes, Miss. I'm afraid you have to."

You grabbed your plushy dressing gown to drag as much of the bed warmth with you as possible, quickly washed your face with cold water and went outside.

"Do you really have to get up that early?" You faintly wailed, approaching the winged chair.

"Is that how humans greet each other in the morning? How impolite."

You reached the chair, rested your arms on the backrest just to see his dirty smirk.

"Stop it. JARVIS said you didn't sleep? Is that right?"

"What does it matter?" He softly asked while keeping his gaze outside where the sun was still hiding behind the far, slightly hilly horizon.

"Well, insomnia usually has a reason, and since JARVIS keeps checking our medical state it can't be something physical, what is bad because physical problems are mostly a bit easier to deal with than the other cause."

"And that would be?" He still didn't look at you.

"Psychological." Now he turned his head to you, but now you were watching as the edges of the warm autumn sun rising from behind the hills, being dimmed by the sun screen windows so you could look at it directly. You saw him in your peripheral and went on, "Psychological problems are far more problematic to deal with. It requires just so much strength because no one really can help us. We have to be honest to ourselves, which can be really hurtful." You looked down on him. The second your eyes met, his features shifted to maintain a plain expression, but the millisecond before he adjusted his face, you saw a broken man. You kept looking him in the eye, asking, "Do you want to talk about what's on your mind?"

He broke eye contact, looking outside. "I thought you were just a simple secretary, not something that is called a shrink here on Midgard."

"Okay. I can't take your bitchiness before I hadn't my tea." You patted him lazily on the shoulder before you left for the kitchen. Coming around the corner you met Tony.

"Oh hey! Good morning Y/N! Why are you up that early?" He said, way too enthusiastic for that time.

"It looks like Loki likes to watch the sunrise." You said, eyes half closed. You pulled your dressing gown tighter around your body to keep the warmth as you realized what you looked like.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot I'm not at home, that's maybe a bit too casual..." You felt the blood rush again into your cheeks.

"First of all: Stop that apologizing. You don't have to. Second: You can wear whatever you want. You can even wear nothing if you feel like, but we have men here that go on missions and that could distract them a bit too much. Third: You are at home. And I really loved The Little Mermaid." He said, and with a quick grin he gestured at the shell patches that were placed like a bra. A moment that lasted a bit too long to be comfortable he studied your face again. Catching himself staring, his body slightly shifted. "Do you need anything?"

"Oh, no, thanks. ... Uhm, well, yes. Where's the stuff to make some decent tea?" You shared a tired smile.

"Ah, sure. Already heard you're not on the caffeine train. Although, that's not really true, you prefer black and green tea, right? Lots of caffeine in there, too. Everything you need is in the small pharmacist's unit on the left end of the kitchen. Pots, mugs, strainers, tea. Help yourself." He grinned at you quickly, then he left.

The common room was so peaceful and nice in the dimmed morning light. For a second you enjoyed the atmosphere before you made some tea. You sniffed through the dozens of pretty small tea tins and chose one that smelled sweet and spicy, like gingerbread.

You grabbed a tablet to carry a warmer, two mugs and your hot teapot and returned to your room. You placed everything on the low side table next to Loki's winged chair. It looked like he hadn't moved since you left. From the corner of his eye he watched you.

"I heard you like tea, too. I hope you like my choice." You simply said, pushing one mug towards him. A bit concerned he looked at the mug, up at you and back at the mug again.

You went to your room, saying "I hope you don't think I would poison you, the tea's still too hot to prove you wrong with a sip from your mug." Shortly after you returned with a giant book. You grabbed the second winged chair, tore it with loud screeching towards the side table so you could reach the tea on it, threw yourself into the chair and placed your feet on the small stool in front of it. Without looking up you grabbed your mug, made yourself comfy and said, "I hope you don't mind me joining you. Looks like this is the nicest place in our living room." After a minute you added, "If you feel like starting a conversation, go ahead. But please understand that I won't be the first to do so, because since we met you barely said more than 15 sentences to me and if I want to talk to myself, I usually do that in my mind."

You really hoped you were acting correctly. You didn't know how else to deal with someone who is full of complex problems he obviously won't talk about, especially with someone unimportant like you. Just a normal human woman. No powers, no knowledge. Just you and your simple life. Like everyone else, you've been through some tough times and got your burdens to carry. But that was probably nothing compared to what he had experienced. You knew that and you thought it would be the best just to be there, trying to be kind despite his pompous behaviour he showed towards you during the following days. It took him several days to accept the mug of tea you wordlessly offered him every morning. You silently accompanied him every day in your winged chairs. The first two days he was so stiff next to you, he couldn't even manage to read a book. You totally understood that, remembering how long it took you to feel just a bit more relaxed around the other Avengers. You couldn't hide your smile as he finally grabbed a book and appeared to be more chilled around you. You felt a bit of a success. Looks like you were not just like a pain in the ass to be around. After four more days you couldn't bear the buzzing silence in your ears, your minor tinnitus coming more and more to the surface. The calming bubbling of the aquarium didn't help anymore. You asked Tony if you could grab your earphones from your flat. He said he would care for that and one hour later he handed you the best earphones one could probably buy. You couldn't resist to hug him as you thanked him, literally half ran, half danced into your room to connect the station of the wireless headphones with your phone. You put the giant thing on and returned to your winged chair with a broad smile on your face. Looking next to you, you saw Loki's confused expression. A bit too loud you simply said "That's for listening to music! I really missed music!" and turned your attention back to your phone, starting one of your favorite playlists. Oh, how good it felt! Music rushing through your veins, you could not concentrate on your book. You laid it aside and just listened. You enjoyed the beautiful view of strong winds tearing on the trees, the warmth of the mug in your hand. You turned up the volume more and more until it was so loud Loki couldn't help to glance over to you, eyebrows furrowed, but you didn't care. You just realized how much you had missed listening to music. You started to feel his stare piercing you. "Okay, I'm leaving already! I'll be in my room, please don't do anything questionable!", you almost shouted at him through the loud music on your ears and left him. In your room you started to enjoy your music to the max. You twirled around, mouthed the lyrics (and it was really hard not to sing along), danced and moved just like the sounds pushed through your bones. The time just rushed by and as JARVIS linked into your headphones to communicate with you, you let out a little screech.

"My god, JARVIS, don't frighten me like that!"

"I'm very sorry, Miss, but there was no other possibility to get in touch with you since you didn't answer the knocking."

"What knocking?"

In that moment someone knocked on your door which you could hear now. You put the headphones down in your neck and opened.

"Oh, hi Tony!" You smiled goofily.

"Oh good, you're neither deaf nor dead! Come to the common room, I got us all pizza."

You wanted to follow him right away, but noticed that you were still wearing your pj's. After a few minutes you'd changed into something comfortable but more presentable. You all had pizza and some drinks together and you truly felt at ease with those extraordinary people. It got late and the conversations turned more serious. Everyone told some small tidbits from their darker past (everyone but Loki of course, who was sitting a little closer this time but still not directly next to anyone). You wanted to participate and encouraged by beer you joined the talk.

"You have all been through so much shit! It's incredible how you bear that along with you all the time. I'm kinda glad I can't remember most of my childhood."

"What do you mean, you can't remember?" Steve asked.

"Uhm, everything before I turned 11 is wiped." Your voice turned a little low and you weren't able to keep eye contact anymore, but went on. "All I remember is waking up in a hospital, alone. I was told I were in the car with my parents and they had a terrible accident. I got a severe head injury and had been put into artificial coma to avoid cerebral death. They kept me sleeping for several months and it took two more weeks until I eventually woke up after they ended the coma. Everything was just so strange because it felt like the first day of my life. I couldn't recall anything, not even my name. My whole body was still bruised but I wasn't able to feel anything. They didn't find any further family, but one week after I woke up a woman showed up. Her face was familiar but I couldn't assign her. She said she was a family friend, a childhood friend of my mother. She adopted me and did a really great job. She told me everything she knew about my past but it was like she was telling stories about strangers. At first she brought me to several doctors who tried to retrieve my memories but all failed. It was hard, but at some point I accepted that my mind didn't want me to know what happened before. ... Tony, are you okay? You look a bit pale?" You turned the attention to him as you saw him.

"No. No, everything's fine." He cleared his throat. "That's just a heavy story here. But your mom's friend did a great job."

He patted you a bit too hard on the shoulder as he stood up and left.

"...Did I say something wrong?" You were a bit confused.

"No, don't worry hun" Natasha assured you, "That happens often. He hears something, can be literally anything, that make the gears in his twisty brain go round and he simply leaves and hides in his lab."

"Yep, and mostly a few minutes later he texts me to follow him." Bruce added and just as he finished his smart watch peeped. He gestured at his wrist, shrugged and left as well, but not without thanking you for your frankness and wishing you a good night. The others went on with the topic of amnesia and you just let your eyes wander through the room, trying to calm down a bit. As soon as you were in the middle of attention, your heart rate peaked. Your eyes met Loki's. He had come even closer, directly opposite to your position and ignored the others completely, he simply looked at you. But his gaze was different than usual. Softer. The longer you kept eye contact the more uncomfortable you grew. You felt blood rushing to your cheeks again and had to look down. Suddenly you wanted to leave. You needed to leave. You wished everyone a good night but no one let you go without being hugged. You felt their appreciation for opening up to them. It helped you calm a bit. You went into your personal living room, quietly closed the door, lent onto it and took a deep breath, eyes shut. You wanted just to go into your bedroom but as you opened your eyes again, Loki lent next to your bedroom door. He looked down on his feet.

"I can help you."


	5. Chapter 5

Bruce entered the lab to see Tony pacing it up and down, absolutely scatterbrained. He never saw him like that before.

"My god, Tony, what's wrong with you?"

"I know now why she seems so familiar to me. I never forget a face. Even if it's only some feature of it."

"What do you mean? I can't follow, do you mean you knew Y/N before?"

Tony wordlessly grabbed his purse from his pocket, rummaged through it and pulled out an old, wrinkled photograph of a woman in her mid-twenties.

"Wow, she looks exactly like Y/N"

"That's my sister."

Bruce's answer was nothing but an open mouth. After a few breaths all he said was "...WHAT."

"I had a sister. I kept her and her family secret almost long enough after I found they existed. I visited them often. I always played with Y/N in the backyard. She was an exceptional little girl, I dearly loved her, just like my sister. Her husband wasn't that bad, too. But one day... someone found out about them. I... I wasn't able to protect them. To protect what I loved. They were killed in a faked car accident and their house was burnt down. I thought... I thought..." He fought against the tears. "I thought I lost them all. I didn't knew Y/N survived. If I knew... Why didn't Kim tell me? She adopted her without telling me!!" Rage filled his heart. "She didn't even tell her! She had the right to know! Maybe even to choose!"

"I... I really don't know what to say. What are you gonna do? Will you tell her? You have to tell her."

"Of course I have to. But not yet. I have to find out why Kim kept it secret from me."

"I'm sorry, but I thought Y/N said she died a few years ago?"

Tony had to take a deep breath realizing that the best friend of his long gone sister was dead, too.

"I have to find out what's left."

"Tony, please let me help you! What can I do?"

Tony rushed to the door, but said to Bruce before leaving, "Think of some excuses why you would need some medical tests get run over her. Check her completely. Make sure she's safe here while I'm gone. I'm not gonna lose her again." He silently added to himself "She's my whole family."

***

You pressed yourself slightly against the door.

"You can help me with... what?" You asked Loki. He now raised his eyes to meet yours and opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a knocking. You jumped away from the door. You turned around and opened it with a smile.

"Oh, hi Bruce! What's up?

He blankly stared at you before he said, "Whoa, that was quick. I, uhm, I need you in the lab. You are here since a few days and we need to make a medical checkup on you. Just for our files."

"And you need that now at... 1 am." You raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah. Sorry, I should have done that by yesterday but I totally got carried away by... stuff that's not more important than your health so I really got a bad conscious right now." He gave you a little sorry smile that was just too cute to say no to.

"Aww, you really know how to persuade a woman, Bruce." Turning to Loki you pointed at him and said with narrowed eyes "We gonna talk tomorrow." but send a small smile his way before you followed Bruce.

You sat on the cold exam table for quite a while now but it just didn't warm up under your body.

"If that takes any longer I'll need a blanket or something, otherwise I'll get a cystitis on this ice block. ... I get them easily." You added after Bruce looked up from the monitors and seemed confused.

As he handed you a woolen blanket you asked, "And why are we really doing all this testing, Bruce?"

A little baffled at first, he said, "It's obligatory. We need to know that you don't have any conditions that weren't discovered yet, the health system in our country is not the best, you know..."

"Ah. Yeah. Sure." You winked at him awkwardly. "So, did JARVIS notice any irregularities in my system? He said he keeps on running medical scans over all of us all the time. Which I think is a really clever thing since literally anything could happen here."

"No, no don't worry Y/N. That really has no other reason than precaution." He assured you, then drew his attention back to the monitors again.

After a while you broke the silence again, "So, you are a doctor? What did you specialize in?"

"Me? Oh, I don't have a medical degree, but a PhD in biology. And six other PhD's so I'm capable of doing a medical check."

"You really got SEVEN PhD's? My god, how does your brain even fit in there!" You laughed impressed. You jumped off the table and walked over to him.

"And this other... thing," you said low and conspiratorial, "You got that totally under control?"

Being too concentrated on the screens he answered without looking at you, "Yeah, sure."

You couldn't resist to grab a pencil and poked him in the side, stepping quickly backwards and watching his face, expecting something to happen.

"Wow, nothing!"

Bruce had to laugh at your childish grin and said "Don't worry, I wouldn't be here if I couldn't handle pointy objects..." While he said that he remembered something and his smile changed a bit.

"Everything alright? You look concerned? Do those screens tell you I'm gonna die?"

"What? Oh, no. It's just you reminded me of someone."

"Oh really? Must be someone charming." You joked as you came closer again. You watched Bruce being super concentrated, like he was in another dimension. It was calming in some way. And still, you knew this 'obligatory check up' was not the real reason you were here. Bruce maybe was a genius, but a really lousy liar.

***

It didn't take Tony quite long to find out what happened to Kim. She came down with acute leukaemia five years ago and died four weeks after the diagnosis. It was really hard for him to hold back his tears, being confronted with all this hurting past. He found out where she was buried and wanted to visit her grave, flying there in his suit.

He stood in front of the modest tombstone. He laid down the flowers he bought around the corner. 

"I can't remember if you loved tulips or hated them. But there was some kind of connection, I know for sure. ... Why, Kim? Why didn't you tell me anything? Didn't you think the truth would find its way at some point? Why are you doing this to me? How should both of us ever cope with this?" He couldn't stop his tears anymore. He came down on one knee, hiding his face in his hands. He heard some feet scuffing closer but didn't bother to retain countenance. He was mildly surprised as he felt a hand resting on his shoulder. He looked up and saw an old woman carrying a sad smile. And an envelope.

"You must be Tony Stark?" She said with a raspy voice, "Then this is for you. Miss Carpenter handed it to me a few days before she left us. She said, someday you would appear at her grave and then the time would be there for you to read it."

Wordlessly Tony took the letter from her hand and she left. He went to a nearby bench and took a deep breath before he opened it.

"Dear Tony

I thought I would have time enough to tell you this in person. I really thought. But as it turned out recently, time is against me. I am so, so sorry for the loss of your sister. That she had to die similar to your parents. When it happened they only informed me since there was no official connection between you two. And I was just so pissed. She only had to die because you were related and you promised to protect her. You promised. It took me quite a while to accept that you were just a scapegoat for my grief. I am so truly sorry for that. It is not your fault. It never was and never will be, no matter what may happen. You did your best to keep her safe, them all. But the hatred of some persons can grow really strong and you're only human after all. I know that you will carry this as your personal burden for your entire life, but let me tell you again; it is not your fault. 

I took care of Y/N because I reacted wrong to the situation and wanted to keep her away from you. I thought they would try again if they knew your sister's girl was still alive; the girl you loved like your very own daughter. I don't know if that was the correct way to do but she's still alive, safe and sound, so I guess it wasn't just that bad. I know, I should have told you. But I didn't know how to do so. With every day it grew harder. And it seemed that Y/N would not get her memory back at all, so I didn't want to confuse her even more, neither. I did my best to give her all she needed to become a proper young lady and I think that went really well, but I surely do not deserve credit for this. It is the Stark blood in her veins. I could see her mother in her every day, and sometimes I even saw you. She is so kind and caring, always a genuine smile on her lips. She carries a purity in her heart that is unparalleled. But she is so stubborn and perfectionist as well sometimes and gets carried away with whatever she does that takes in all her attention. She may seems shy and insecure when you first meet her, but she is the most empathic and sensitive person I've ever met. It's hard to lie to her without being caught. She is now old enough to look after herself. And since she told me she would start working at your compound at the reception soon, it'll probably won't take you long to notice her. She's just like a mirror of her mother.

I really hope that one day you will be able to forgive me. Not just because I'm dead, but because the rage in your heart will eventually settle. Please take care of her. Not that she would need to be cared for, but she tends to get lonely. She selects her friends very carefully and prefers to stay on her own before she spends time with people she doesn't feel comfortable with. So, just be yourself around her. She loved you so much when she was a little girl, you don't have to act differently now.

I am sorry. So, so sorry. For everything.

Yours, from beyond. Kim."

Every cell in Tony's body felt numb. He tried to process what he just read but it felt like there was grit in the gears of his brain. The giant load of emotions sent him into overdrive. He didn't know how to even move anymore. How could he manage to look into your face and not fall apart immediately? How should he explain? How would you react? There were so many massive questions on his mind and he had absolutely no idea what would happen. He had to go. Clear his mind. Think. He got back into his suit and flew away.


	6. Chapter 6

It turned out the tests Bruce made with you seemed to be alright, nothing you didn't knew or that wasn’t indicated before. The following days passed without anything special happening, except your relation with Loki. You tried to pick up the conversation with Loki again but apparently the moment was over. He shut himself off again. But you didn't miss out that he continued to feel more comfortable around you. The next day he accepted your tea offering for the first time. That made you ridiculously happy and you couldn't hide the big grin appearing on your face.

"What's so funny?"

"What? Oh, no, nothing." After a few moments of silence you couldn't hold back, "Do you like my tea? Today I chose a rose flavored green tea. I love the scent of roses. I don't like the flowers themselves, they are everywhere you look, being pretentious, I'm just weary of them, but their scent... Wonderful."

Your rambling was met with silence and you almost gave in, disappointed. But before you looked away you could see a small smirk tugging on his lips.

A few days later you just couldn't contain yourself anymore. You turned in your winged chair to Loki.

"How are you feeling today?"

"...What?"

"How do you feel? We've been sharing these rooms for a few days now and have barely spoken to each other. Tell me something. Anything. Or ask me something! Just let us interact in any way. I can't take it any longer."

He looked you straight in the eyes, the dimmed sunlight making the green-blue almost glow. Then a question seemed to pop up in his mind.

"What are you reading?"

You looked down at the book on your lap. "Oh, that is something specific. It's called Antiquitates Iudaicae. It's not that easy to read, it's not like a novel or something. The text is about 1900 years old. A roman-jewish historian named Flavius Josephus tries to explain his beliefs to the Greek to help them understand his culture."

"Why are you reading this, since it is not easy to read?"

"I am a faithful person and it helps me a bit understanding the bible. There are no other ancient Jews from the first century left around here, so I wanted to know how he tried to explain his culture to persons that have no relation with it."

"So, you believe in god? Then you must be humbled to be in the presence of one." A lofty expression appeared on his face, but was wiped away the second you started laughing.

"I'm sorry, really. Don't want to be disrespectful. But do you really think you are a god? Just because you have access to other dimensions and live a few thousand years? Not that this wouldn't be highly impressive, honestly. But you are as far away from being a god than I am. You are a creation, not a creator."

Loki wanted to say something but the words kept stuck in his throat. His face turned sly.

"You have no idea what I am capable of." His voice was low and husky.

"You are completely right. If there was some sort of food chain, I'd clearly be beyond you because of your many skills and knowledge. But they don't make you the summit, neither. Look, I totally see why the ancient Norse people thought of you as gods. What you can do is really admirable. But I would never give you this title. I got too much respect of it."

Loki tried to swallow down his anger. He really wanted to behave but even more he wanted you to explain that. "So, what do you think deserves this title?"

"Love. Compassion. Mercy. Omnipotence. I think, nothing in the whole universe happens without him allowing it to happen. Even the bad things. For the most people it's hard to accept that. They blame him for all the terrible things. It's not like that he would cause the bad things to happen. But he knows exactly what's going on. He knows every outcome of every move. And, I believe, he leads us on the tracks we should go. Not like we are just marionettes and he sets every move, but at some points, big decisions that give our lifes a turn, he gives us a certain push. A lot dreadful stuff happened to me in my life, but who knows that it couldn't have been even worse? Who is able to say the way it went is not the best of all possibilities? Even if it is hard to cope with, I know he gives me the strength to get through. Whether it is some sort of energy that comes from within me or he puts people in my life that will help me with whatever comes my way. But that is my totally personal point of view. The nice thing is, I don't have to persuade anyone to believe the same. My faith is individual. Nobody has to agree with me. What sort of faith do you have? ...if you have one at all?"

Loki listened carefully and his face slowly softened as he followed your thoughts. He seemed a bit surprised as you addressed the question to him, like he was asked for his opinion for the first time in his life.

"That is a very interesting point of view, I have to admit. I can imagine that it is not very popular, but interesting, though. I... I never really developed something you could call faith. My culture is full of myths and legends. I learned everything about our Allfathers and Gods, but never took it really personal. I was not attracted to do so."

He stopped talking and started pondering on that thought. You watched his face, his eyes getting lost. You used the opportunity to take a closer look and studied his face. It was edgy and delicate at the same time. His bright eyes pierced right through you every time he looked at you. He was very concentrated on what he wanted to say next, so you simply kept quiet and waited for him to form his thoughts into words. It was rather beautiful to watch his mind work.

After a short while he continued, "I think there might be something like a higher force that has impact on our lives. But that started just recently. I long thought that I am the master of every of my own steps and if I just place them right, everything will work out just fine. I will get what I want if I just fight hard enough for it. So that's what I did, I fought for my own purposes. But all I got was misery, sorrow and hatred." 

You could literally see his pain boiling up from the inside. It was tearing him in two. You reacted out of instinct and reached out to lay your hand on his cheek. His eyes darted at you immediately, turning glassy. Softly you stroke over his cheek with your thumb. You wished you could just pull him into a tight embrace and help him let go of all expectations towards himself. To put down his guard. It was like you could literally feel his inner need of ease and solace. But he was just too much of a proud man. He pressed his lips together and pushed your hand away, abruptly stood up, stepping towards the window front, staring outside with his arms crossed.

"I'm sorry." Was all that came to your mind. Pathetic, you thought. And he thought that as well.

"You have no idea what you are talking about." He hissed turning towards you. "Don't act like you would understand. YOU HAVE NO IDEA!" He shouted at you and disappeared right in front of your eyes. You sat there in your winged chair, nonplussed. You looked around the room, but no sight of him.

Far beyond puzzled, you started to talk with the air. "I... I don't if you are still here? But, I wanted to say that you are right. I have no idea what you've been through. What it feels like to be in your skin. If I were, I know I would have done the same that you did, because you are the only person that feels this way. I am no one to judge. I never judge. Well, at least I try. The big truth is that it's simply impossible to compare individuals with each other. We are the summaries of our experiences and we all have our very own way of perceiving the world around us. So, I have to add as well that you also have no idea what you are talking about. I do understand. Traumata are a serious thing and everyone reacts differently to that, but don't treat me like I had no empathy. Maybe everyone else treated you like you didn't even had the right to speak your mind, but I'm not like this. You are intelligent and attentive and if you haven't noticed that by now, you are obviously blinded by some kind of rage and hatred. And pride. But I don't want to push you. Just know that I won't let you treat me like this. I will not leave you because I can imagine that you've been left too often in your life, but I will not tolerate it. Okay, and because it feels like I have a serious conversation with myself outside of my head I'm gonna go into the kitchen to get me a drink because that's fucking strange. Feel free to join me there."

You sat on a barstool and looked out of the giant window front at the other side of the even bigger room. You felt the cold sweat of the glass condensing in your hand, running over your fingers. Totally lost in your thoughts you didn't notice Steve sitting down next to. He really tried not to startle you but failed.

"Sorry Y/N. Just thought you looked like something was on your mind you'd like to talk about?"

"No problem. Ah, no, it's okay. There were just some intense emotions between Loki and me."

Looking at his raised eyebrows you awkwardly cleared your throat as you explained yourself, "Oh no no no, not something like that. Totally not. No no." Somehow you dwelled in that thought a bit too long.

"Well, that were lots of 'no's but okay." Steve laughed and pushed you slightly with his shoulder to the side.

Before you could blush too obviously you changed topic, "Have you seen Tony? The last time I saw him was when were having pizza. Is everything alright?"

"To be honest I haven't seen him, neither. Well, at least not in person. I walked by the lab and saw him video chatting with Bruce, so he must be alive. But don't worry, wouldn't be the first time he disappears for a few days without telling anyone. ... Are you sure you don't want to talk about what's weighing you down?"

"Thank you Steve. Everything's fine." You conjured a smile though you didn't felt like smiling which made it totally implausible. But Steve accepted you didn't want to talk right now. He assured you can knock on his door whenever you wanted before he left the open kitchen of the common room again. You really, really hoped Loki would show up in the kitchen. You imagined both of you together having a drink, talking, enjoying each other's companionship... But you were pulled out of your day dream by a polite voice.

"Miss Y/N, your presence is demanded outside of the personal rooms."

"What? Me? For what?" You thought JARVIS sounded differently than usual.

"I am sorry, Miss, but I was not given further information than it being important and urgent."

"Uhm, okay. Sure. Just a sec." You gulped down the rest of your Gin Tonic and jumped off the barstool. For a moment it felt like someone was slightly brushing your arm as to hold you. You stopped, looked around, but didn't see anyone, so you went on.

After you slipped into your shoes and a coat you were going down to the ground floor with the lift. The doors opened and the blood in your veins froze. Two giant, black-suited men immediately exited the lift. One grabbed your arms and pulled them violently behind your back and the other one pressed a strongly sweet smelling piece of fabric on your mouth and nose. You felt a sharp sting right into the side of your neck just before everything went limp and dark.


	7. Chapter 7

The first thing breaking into your consciousness was the hell of a headache. Awfully slowly your mind clicked back into state. It felt like it took hours. Cold from the metal surface beneath you started to make your skin go numb. That made you realize that you were naked. Completely. Suddenly your brain began to rush. Wide awake you fumbled around since you were in pure darkness. No single spot of light. Not even the little green spot on the bracelet Tony gave you. The moment the hope rose was the moment it died. When it was not working they were not able to locate you. But at least they were not able to take the vibranium bracelet off your arm. You were happy they didn't just chop off your hand. Your body was now on code red. Every sense was fully there to get the situation. You tried so hard to take a deep breath and calm down at least a little bit. Carefully you let your hands slide over the ice cold ground around you. No indication for the size of the room. Only the sounds you made told you it was a big one, though not empty due to the echoing. Warily you stood up and you suppressed a moan as your head answered the movement with a heavy droning. Touching down your body you confirmed what you felt at first, you weren't wearing a single piece of clothing. Instinctively you covered your sensitive areas with arms and hands and stood there, totally out of concept. Tears came running down your cheeks without you noticing them. You turned your head around in the dark to maybe find any source of light but were disappointed. You heard a far thud from the left side behind you and immediately turned towards that direction. Panic rising within you, you carefully stepped backwards, away from that sound, reaching a hand out behind you to feel any obstacles before you would trip and fall over them. The soft patting of your sweaty feet on the sleek surface was unnaturally loud in your ears. It felt like you were going backwards into the unknown for kilometers. You almost let out a gasp as you finally bumped into some kind of machine behind you. You turned to palpate it but you had no idea of any machines so couldn't identify it. You surrounded the cold, iron giant in front of you and followed its figure. You came to the conclusion you had to be in some sort of factory because the big machine was connected to a conveyor. You wanted to follow the route of the conveyor but only could take like three steps before you bumped again into something. Into someone. You audibly sucked air into your lungs in shock. The fact that the person didn't react at all was not making it better. You turned into the other direction to get away but was stopped mid-movement by another person you ran into. Panic making you drowsy you turned to the side where you assumed was no machine standing, but the same happened. You retreated towards the machine until you felt the cold iron screws and levers poking you in the back. You fumbled to find the start of the conveyor and assumed that there was a gap beneath it and abruptly ducked away and under the conveyor. Your flight instincts kicking in you were ready to run despite the fact you couldn't see one damn thing. You couldn't believe you were right and there actually was space beneath it and were almost on the other side as a strong and rough hand grabbed you by the ankle and dragged you back. You couldn't help but scream and kick in any direction, only hurting yourself as you hit against the props of the conveyor. Your nails tried to dig into the metal floor but did nothing but screech. Another hand pulled you up onto your feet by grabbing your hair. Two more hands took your arms and twisted them behind your back. You were pushed forwards, forced to walk if you didn't want the person holding you to stomp you down. You hissed and screamed questions that were left answered with silence. Your head was violently pulled and held aside as another injection was thrust into your neck. You felt dizzy and your body turned slightly numb, but did not lose conscious. Your vision changed. You had to blink a few times before your surroundings were enlightened. You realized there never has been any darkness, you were simply blinded. You felt so sick you just wanted to throw up and pass out. You had to cough and retch, pressed your eyes shut the now bright light stinging in your brain. Carefully you opened your eyes as you had your head tilted down and the first thing you saw was your naked and bruised body. Bringing your knees together to cover at least anything you slowly looked up. A tall man stood in front of you, smiling down on you. His gaze wandering over you sent million disgusting shivers down your spine.

"So, you are the long lost Stark child." He had an European accent, German maybe. His smile turned into a grin. "You are not in best shape, I have to admit." He studied every inch of your skin which made you wanting to claw it right off your body. You felt tears dripping off your jawbone. "Luckily your physical state does not matter. At least you woke up, you were unconscious for almost three hours, although it should be just one. I'll have to take a note for further medication." He turned on his heels and addressed to the men holding you, "Bringt sie ins Labor. Wir haben Arbeit zu erledigen."

After you were dragged through lots of doors and corridors you entered a laboratory. It was clean white and looking overly sterile. Persons in white lab coats and protective masks stopped and turned their heads as you were forced into a big chair with movable spots around it, like a dentist's chair. Dozens of unknown eyes watched you getting shackled into the chair. You tried to tilt your pelvis backwards and pressed your knees together as far as possible so you maybe could hide this spot from the curious views since you had to accept that your bare torso was on display. You were strapped into the chair at so many spots that it was almost impossible to move one centimeter. The men that dragged you here left the room and one of the white lab persons approached you. You tried to talk but the former injection had turned your tongue into lead meanwhile. You could do nothing but watch these robotic acting persons work on you. They shaved the left and right side of your head and placed electrodes on the pale skin, only leaving a broad stripe of hair on the middle of your head. Tears dripped on your thighs as you watched our hair softly falling down besides you like in slow motion. They pierced your arm to get a vascular access and stuck more electrodes along your sternum and on the sides of your ribcage. The lab people were extremely careful and cautious not to touch you even slightly more than necessary. They strictly avoided eye contact. Monitors were rolled into the room and connected with the meanwhile numerous cables from your body. Then, all in a sudden, every single person left the room. You sat there, strapped and muted, naked and frightened to death. You were not able to catch one clear thought, your brain swam in a soup of adrenaline and tranquilizers. All you heard was the echo of the words 'the lost Stark child'. You just closed your eyes and tried to stop the world from turning so fast. Your system was almost knocking out when someone grabbed you by your left over hair and pulled your head up. Lazily you blinked at the blinding light. Your eyes could not focus correctly, you saw the shadowy silhouette of a person. Shortly after a cold liquid shot up the veins of your arm everything clicked into place. In front of you sat the man who ordered to bring you here.

"So, Y/N, finally we found you. Took us really long to figure out you actually did not die in the accident. Well, that was the original plan, so it worked out but we were tricked and couldn't get our hands on you. But luckily, it doesn't matter anymore." He slipped into white rubber gloves. "I'm so sorry to sound stereotypical, but this can go two different ways; an easy one and a hard one. You are free to choose." He turned around to pick a syringe with a purple liquid and added it to the infusion bag connected to your arm. "But first of all, that you are even capable of answering the questions, we will help you remember."

Cold sweat was dripping on your thighs, falling down from your face. Your breathing became shallow as you felt awfully slowly how your surroundings began to blur and you fell into the deep, black void.

Your muscles tensed up to an incredibly painful level as millions of memories rushed over you out of the blue. Things you saw for the first time since you have been 11 years old but could immediately feel the moment again. The atmosphere, the feelings, the voices, the smiles and the tears. Absolutely everything your mind had tried to lock up forever was pulled violently into the blinding light. It was so familiar and so strange at the same time. You saw the beautiful smile of your mother, softly stroking your cheek. The loud and hearty laugh of your father as you said something sassy. The back of the head of your uncle as you sat on his shoulders, running through your garden. He took you off his shoulders to hold you up into the sky, screeching of fun and joy, and as you looked down you looked into the happy face of a young Tony Stark. Uncle Tones. That was too much for your brain and it did the last thing it could do to protect yourself from freaking out; it turned everything off. Tony's face fading in front of your eyes, you felt your whole body turning limp before it all went dark.

Your sleep was dull and dreamless, a blessing for your overstimulated system. You were tugged back to consciousness, everything felt numb. They let you sleep in sitting position and you carefully lifted your head. Your neck should've hurt terribly but you just didn't feel anything. You looked around and saw your captor sitting at one of the desks watching a screen, turning around to you.

"Oh good, you are awake." He rolled over to you on his office chair. The noise of the small plastic wheels was nearly unbearable for your ears. "Hope you had some nice rest, you are not getting any more of it for quite a while now." He tapped on one of the monitors next to you. "I am turning down your painkillers and tranquilizers now. In a few minutes you should feel everything and be able to speak again. Nothing I would look forward to if I were in your situation." He now faced you directly. "My name is Dr. Daniel Fieberbrunn. I am the chief physician of the Hydra facility you are held in recently. I am continuing the mission my father started. He was killed by one of our own soldiers. A real tragedy. The soldier had to get readjusted and the mission was paused. But now, so many years later, I get the honor to revive it since our spies at the compound found out you are the presumed dead child of Marlena Stark. Your parents were killed by one of our soldiers and his mission also included to leave you alive and bring you to us. Why, you may ask. Well, after my father found out Howard Stark had another child, a daughter, he started research on her and her husband. Soon after we eliminated Howard Stark, Tony Stark found out about her. We've been watching you for years already to find out if you were of any use for Hydra. Stark tried very hard to keep his sister and her family dark to protect them. Pathetic. Finally, as you turned 10, my father found evidence of what he was sure. He wanted to obtain you to form you in young years. But it looked like our soldier failed at the mission and you died as well. He went missing for several months before he reappeared at our base out of nowhere. When my father confronted the soldier with his failure he lost temper and killed him. But the soldier was very valuable for Hydra so instead of getting eliminated he got readjusted. I heard it is not much better than getting killed, so I'm satisfied with that. Of course I will not tell you what my father believed to see in you. Not yet." He looked at his watch. "Alright, any second your physical senses should come back to life. I hope I answered enough questions to keep you quiet and cooperating, so we can speed things up. I neither have the empathy nor the patience to deal with a whiny, confused girl. Ah, I see the medication stop shows up."

His lips formed a small smile as you started to feel every bruise, cramped muscle, the sores beneath the shackles. You coughed and retched as you tried to speak.

"Why? Why are you doing this?" Your voice was a mere, husky whisper.

Your opponent rolled his eyes. "As I already said, we want to form you so you will be useful for us. You will help us to finally bring peace and order to the world. If you ask another question I already told you the answer of, I will have to punish you. I don't have time for such chatting."

"I'm not 10 anymore, you cannot form me into anything I don't want to be."

His answer was a loud laugh. "You simply have no idea of what we can do."

"I'm the most regular person you can imagine. Just a simple woman. I'm of no use for you. What should I have that is of interest?"

He sighed and pulled out a scalpel. Before you could react he grabbed your face with an incredibly tight grip and drew a deep cut from your eyebrow across your eyelid to the edge of your malar bone, almost splitting your eyelid in two. You cawed into his ear since your voice was not capable of screaming already. Warm blood run down your face and dripped onto your thigh, forming a growing puddle between your legs. The sharp pain was so intense, it almost paralyzed you. All you could do was breathe and cry. The blood blurred the vision of your left eye. As you tried to blink the pain peaked to an intolerable rate.

"I told you I'm not gonna tell you what is special about you. Another thing like that and I will blind the other eye. Then I will tear it out of your skull and replace it with an artificial eyeball."

You had no idea what to do. You were in complete and utter distress.

"What do you want from me?" You wheezed.

"At first, tell me everything about the accident. I want accurate answers. You are allowed to take your time. This will be not always the case. Make use of it."

It made your insides twist to only think of cooperating with them but you were so, so scared. You didn't want your eyeball replaced with an artificial one so they probably could survey you for the rest of your life, always seeing everything you would see. You tried to make up a plan to survive as long as possible until you were rescued. Rescued. That word echoed through your mind. You risked a little look at your bracelet. It was still there, firm and tight around your wrist, shining between the dull shackles, but the green gem was dark, like a usual jewelry. You pushed the thought aside that you would stay here for long. Hope was now the only thing that kept you alive. You sent a quick prayer and concentrated on your task.

The accident. You carefully closed your eyes, the pain from your left eye omnipresent in your thoughts. But you were able to recall. You were in the backseat, gazing out of the window as the dark silhouettes of trees flew by. It was at night, you were on the way to somewhere. Where to? You didn't know, Mom and Dad didn't tell you. They were in a hurry to get into the car. They didn't talk with each other, Mom wasn't even singing along the songs on the radio as she usually did. You didn't realized it before, but as you looked out of the window you saw a quick, small silver flashing between the trees just one second before the disaster happened. Mom was screaming, Dad hitting the brakes really hard, but too late. The car bumped over something, you heard a loud bang, the car overturned and slithered grating over the asphalt. You were screaming and crying. Dad didn't move at all. Mom coughed and turned to Dad, pure panic in her eyes. She looked back at you and started crying as she saw you were alive. She wanted to get to you but was ripped out of the car. You screamed high pitched but silenced immediately as you looked outside. You saw a dark person holding tight onto Moms head. His arm shone like silver in the moonlight. The screams of Mom grew louder and louder, you closed your eyes and pressed your hands on your ears. You heard the dull screaming until it abruptly stopped with a muffled, cracking sound. You dared to look again and just saw the metallic arm letting go of Mom, she fell to the ground. He picked her up again and put her back on her seat. Her head tilted to the side, towards you. You couldn't recognize her, you only saw empty staring eyes and blood. He walked around the car and checked on Dad, but didn't do anything with him. Then he stepped back and ripped out your door, tossing it behind like it was nothing. You were completely paralyzed by fear. You simply stared into his face, your whole body trembling. Half of his face was covered by a black mask, you only saw his eyes glancing at you through strands of dark hair. He tore out your safety belt with one easy move and grabbed you by the collar of your coat. He pulled you out of the car and held you in the air easily with his silver arm, eye to eye. You floundered with your feet, every movement hurt so much. You stared into his eyes, glowing brightly blue in the moonlight, filled with rage. You held onto his metallic arm, crying and breathing heavily. The angst causing your lungs to rattle. You managed to wheeze, "What... did you do... to Mom? Where's... Mom? I... I... can't... breathe..." You felt like you were asphyxiating. Automatically you reached into the pocket of your coat. The man immediately violently grabbed your hand and pulled it up again. His hold was so tight, making you scream as you felt your wrist cracking in his grip. He looked down as he heard something hitting the floor. As he saw your asthma inhaler lying there his face changed. He looked back at you again, his eyes wide and brows furrowed. It looked like he would process something. Like he recalled something he forgot. Slowly he put you back on your feet. You fell to the ground, unable to stand since your legs seemed severely injured. Half lying on the street, you reached out to fetch your inhaler and used it as the doctors had shown you as you first got it. Shortly after drawing breath became easier. You sat up and leant against the car. You could do nothing but cry. You whole body hurt. Mom and Dad were gone. You were surrendered to the mercy of their murderer, standing in front of you. You looked up at him, the tears blurring your view. All you managed to mutter was "Please don't kill me. Don't kill me. Please don't." You repeated it all over and over again. He looked at you, completely different expression in his eyes now. If you didn't knew better you would have said it was regret. He knelt down and carefully picked you up. The pain of being moved with all your injuries was too much and you passed out. You thought you heard him say something before all went dark, it sounded like "I'm sorry."


	8. Chapter 8

Shortly after you disappeared all hell broke loose. Loki actually was there but changed his mind to stop you the last second. But the moment you got into the lift he felt a jolt that that was a giant mistake. He appeared back from the void where he hid and rushed after you but JARVIS had locked up all doors. He shouted for help and soon everyone was trying to get JARVIS to work properly again. Bruce sent a distress alert to Tony who arrived not much later and came in through the terrace door.

"What the hell is going on here?!" 

"JARVIS got hacked, he won't let us open the doors. Y/N was called to get outside and then we got locked up here." Loki explained.

Tony went pale within seconds. He ran into his lab to check on JARVIS. Loki was right, there was a virus program running. It didn't took him longer than a few minutes to get rid of it.

"JARVIS, what happened? Where's Y/N?"

"I am so sorry, Sir. I got intruded and was forced to ask Miss Y/N to go outside the personal rooms. Here is the CCTV from the lift."

The others stood behind Tony and all watched as a video frame popped up and showed you going down with the elevator and then getting kidnapped. Tony couldn't hold back his tears as he watched you going down on your knees, losing your consciousness.

"JARVIS, tell me her bracelet is working."

"Again, I am sorry. Either the bracelet is broken, which is unlikely or there is another virus hidden that keeps me from activating it again. I cannot locate."

"Tony, speak with us! Why would they kidnap Y/N?", Natasha asked Tony, grabbing him at the shoulder and trying to make eye contact.

"She... she... is my niece." That left everyone simply starstruck. Since there was no other way now, Tony explained them everything he found out within the last few days. Clint was the first one to speak again.

"Okay, that's a real shitload of complicating news. But the most important thing is to get this virus off of JARVIS so we will be able to locate her. Tony," he clapped in his hands to rip him out of his apathy, "that's your bodiless robot here, so get some shit done. Bruce, go check all your medical data you collected about her and try to find out why she may be of interest for someone. The rest of us should go through all the CCTV since she moved in. We have to find out how and why she was taken. Okay guys, let's go."

Everyone started to get busy with their tasks. They were all just so eager to find you, but it turned out that this way harder than all of them thought. As hours became days you went through pure hell.

***

You told Fieberbrunn what you remembered from the accident, but not everything. You didn't know why, but you changed the story a bit. You told him that you almost died in the accident and he left you lying on the street, presumed dead. You said it was all in fragments because you were severely injured, but you were told afterwards that soon after the accident another car drove by and provided first aid, calling an ambulance. The next thing you recalled was waking up in hospital months later. You didn't tell him what really happened. This soldier brought you to someone he knew who could help you. Your eyes were closed but you didn't completely pass out, so you heard everything they said.

"Bucky! Where have you been so long? What happened?", a woman said after she opened the door.

"I failed my mission. She reminded me of someone, someone I knew. My order was to bring her to the base, but I couldn't. I killed her parents. It happened again, they brought the Soldier back. I don't know for how long. I did so many things. So much cruelty. Please, help me, Doc. Help her." His voice was so full of panic and agony.

"My god, of course, come in, quick."

You heard creaking of wooden stairs, doors that were opened and closed silently. You were laid down on a hard mattress. You felt hands gently examining you, then the woman spoke again.

"I will have to get her into hospital. She is really severely injured. I think she has to be put into coma to stop her brain from swelling. She is not completely unconscious by now, maybe she can even hear us, but if we don't do something really soon it will not end well. Bucky, it's okay. It's not your fault. You were forced to do this. It wasn't even you. The soldier did this. All you did was fighting the Soldier and saving her. You have done the right thing. I will keep an eye on her. Do you know her name?"

"Y/N. I have to stay. I have to be sure that she will be alright. Let me stay."

"Okay. I can arrange that. But first of all I have to sedate her to relieve her organism."

You let out a silent moan as something pierced your arm and the voices ceased.

As you opened your eyes again you were in a hospital, in a single bed room. Slowly you turned your head to one side and then to other. In the farthermost corner you saw the man with the metal arm leaning against the wall. Your eyes met and panic began to rise again, followed by the accelerated beeping of your heart monitor. His expression was worried and helpless. Out of nowhere a pretty, blonde woman appeared right next to you and held your hand.

"Hey Y/N, it's alright. You are safe. He will not harm you. Listen to me, my dear. You are severely injured. We will have to put you into an artificial coma. That means we will let you sleep for a long while so your body gets enough rest to heal. Don't worry, honey. I will be always by your side, you will never be alone. And don't be afraid of Bucky. The one who hurt you is another person than him. I will protect you. We will."

At first you didn't want to believe what you heard. However, you knew she was telling you the truth, so you simply nodded and felt tears rolling down your cheeks, wetting your pillow.

"Oh, it's ok sweetheart. Don't worry, we will find someone to take care of you. Someone you know, and trust."

You wanted to say something. You dearly wanted to tell her that your uncle would look after you. But as you tried to speak you could only retch because of the tube in your throat.

"No, no. Don't try to speak. That's not good for you. We will find the person, alright? Now, rest again. Don't hurry. Everything will be just fine." She shared a beautiful but sad smile. Her bright red lips and deep brown eyes were the last thing you saw before everything went dark again.

As you eventually woke up again you were alone at first. You blinked into the orange dim light of an autumn afternoon. After a while a blonde woman entered the room to check on you and a broad smile decorated her face as she saw you looking at her.

"Oh my god, darling! How wonderful, you're finally awake! Take it easy. You made us worry a bit already but it's great that you take your time. The important thing is that you are doing very well. Your injuries are not completely healed by now but you are making good progress. Do you remember what happened? Do you remember me?"

You concentrated as good as possible, took in all her features; big brown eyes, wavy blonde hair, beautiful red tinted lips. It felt like you knew her before, but she seemed to be a stranger. You carefully shook your head.

Her smile dimmed a bit and she patted your hand. "Don't worry. That's okay. I'm sure you are feeling dizzy. If you want to you can sleep again a bit. I'll be always around your room. Here -" she gently lifted your hand and placed a small plastic box beneath it, "when you need something, no matter what, even if it is just some company, press this button. I'll be here within a minute. Okay, I'll stay until you are asleep again, alright?"

You felt her genuine compassion for you. It helped you calm down and soon you drifted into a dreamless sleep. In the following days you woke up and fell asleep again over and over, but the awake periods became longer every time. Then a woman appeared by your bed. You could have sworn you knew her, but had no idea who she was. But you felt affection towards her. Something in her face reminded you of happy times, so you trusted her.

With that information you ended your story. You were so tired, you just wanted to sleep. But every time your head doubled over you got slapped. Every time you got hit you didn't only feel the pain of the slap but also a rush of anger. You had no idea how long you were kept here already but it felt just like years. Your skin was bruised and cold, your wrists so sore that every time you moved your hands a bit you tore the wounds open again because the scab stuck to the shackles. You reached the point where your body was about to give up and pass out, but they didn't let you. Every time you were close to losing conscious they added drugs to your infusion which set you on high alert mode. You were so desperately overstimulated that every second of being awake was too much. You just wanted to close your eyes forever and end this torture. They asked you so many questions you didn't know the answer to. Every time you couldn't answer they cut another part of your body. Only small wounds, about 3 cm long and not too deep to be dangerous but soon your whole body was burning, blood dripping on the floor. They even bent you over to cut the flesh on your back. You felt your blood making the chair glibbery and slick. After some time your opponent had enough of you. He took hold of your throat and came real close. You felt his rage and impatience, causing your heart to pond and your blood to rush. He wanted to say something, to threaten you but stopped. You could vividly feel him giving up on you for the moment and how he had to restrain himself from strangling you. He snapped his fingers while he let go of you. He spoke in German again to the two big men who appeared immediately, "Schafft sie mir aus den Augen. Ich kann mit ihr jetzt fürs Erste nichts mehr anfangen. Einzelhaft." While he was talking he disconnected you from all the monitors and opened the shackles, not bothering to give you some gauze or something to stop your blood from running. The two men grabbed you by your arms and dragged you out of the chair. They hauled you through some corridors and dropped you on the dirty floor of a very small room. No window, just a scratchy blanket on the floor. Exhausted to an unbearable level, you took all the strength you had left and crawled over to the blanket, almost not able to lift your limbs, so your already wounded hands and knees were scratching over the crumbly concrete floor. You reached it just in time before you passed out.

A familiar scent was the first thing that broke the faint. Fresh linen. You mouthed a name without even recognising, "Loki...", but all your lips left was a pathetic caw. Warily you opened one eye; the other one stuck together of blood and wound secretion. Someone had put a thin linen blanket over your bare and bloody body as you were unconscious. Dozens of small blood spots soaked it up and made it stick a bit on the wounds. Very carefully you tried to sit up. Next to you stood a glass of a thick, milky liquid and something that looked like a protein bar. Driven by hunger you reached out as fast as you could manage and devoured the bar. You sniffed at the liquid and tasted it, the viscous consistency was so strange to swallow that you retched at first, but it was also like balm for your hoarse throat. After you had finished your modest meal you unstuck the blanket from your body and wrapped it very carefully around your shoulders. You looked around; a very small room made of concrete. The only light source was the slit beneath the heavy metal door. It had a small barred window with a slide hatch. You took a deep breath and tried to analyze the situation, but all you could think of was your home. Your new home. You've been living there only for a short time now but it felt like you would belong there. Of course you did. It was your family. It is your family. Your lost memories hit you hard. Suddenly you missed him so much; your uncle. Tones. And you were surprised but you missed Loki as well. Really bad, actually. You longed for their presence. All the happy memories with your uncle popped up in your mind. You had so much fun together, you loved him so dearly. It felt like no time had passed, your feelings newly ignited after so many years. You wanted to cry but your body was so weary. A part of you just wanted to die right away; never feel this pain again, this humiliation, this despair. But another part wanted to get out. Get back to your recently won family. Those parts were fighting each other for a long time and you didn't know which one would win. But the longer you thought about dying, maybe killing yourself somehow in this cell, the more you opposed the idea. You were surprised as you accepted that you actually wanted to live. To not give up. Hold on until they would find you, and they would. You just knew it. You were torn from your pondering as the hatch in the door was slid open. Empty eyes staring down at you, then the hatch closed again. The door opened with heavy clicking and rattling. A woman dressed in white was pushed inside.

"Go on Missy, patch her up. The doctor wants her back in order asap."

The woman stumbled and almost tripped. The guard kicked a doctor's case after her that slid over the floor until it stopped right next to her. She fixed her firm, blonde ponytail and picked on her white surgical clothes, strictly avoiding eye contact. Though so many years had passed you recognized her still beautiful face immediately.

"Doc?"

Her eyes darted at you. "I haven't been called this for years." She whispered. She came closer, crouched down in front of you and studied your face. "My god..." she gasped, pressing a hand on her mouth to muffle the sounds. Tears shot in her big, brown eyes. Gently she cupped your face with one hand. So many feeling rushed through you; compassion, pity, worries, happiness and sadness all at once.

"Sweetheart, my god, what happened to you? You poor thing..." She grabbed her case and started to treat your wounds, beginning with your eye. 

"Are we being watched?" You whispered.

"No, this is one of the cells without surveillance. And the douchebag in front of the door is half deaf. We can talk. I guess you didn't tell them about me? Or Bucky? Otherwise they wouldn't have sent me in to treat you."

"No. I don't know why, but I couldn't tell them. I said the man with the metal arm presumed me dead and left. A passerby would have found me and called the ambulance. The next thing was me waking up in hospital alone." Then you told her just everything. She had to wipe away her tears every once in a while as she listened, treating your wounds. Your system was so overloaded with pain signals that you didn't even twitched as she sanitized your cuts. As you finished her story it was her turn.

"I had to work for Hydra as a doctor for a long time. Eventually I could manage to escape and I was too unimportant to sent someone after me; I didn't know any secrets and all I did could be done by any other physician as well. It was very unlikely that they just had let me go without chasing me, but later I had to find out that this was calculated. I was part of the team that was in charge of Bucky's transformation into a Soldier. It happened that, from time to time, very simple things he sensed in any way found a path into his subconscious and conjured Bucky back to the surface. They handled this problem with electro shocks wiping his memory, his mind over and over again. It was so awful to watch, but all I could do was to be there for him, whether he was Bucky at the moment or the Soldier. I became a confidant for them both. Then, after I escaped, it happened twice that Bucky came back while he was on a mission as the Soldier. I still don't know how, but he found me and I helped him through this time. He tried to hide from Hydra but they always found him. And wiped him over again. The last time I saw him was when he brought you to my door. It was pure luck that Hydra didn't find out about you before their spies spotted us. We got caught a month after you got adopted by your mom's friend; she was the only relative-like person I could find. When Hydra caught us, they put Bucky back to cryostasis. I haven't heard of him since then. And I was forced to work here in the Hydra prison, take care of the captives. That's my story so far. Oh honey, I wish so dearly I could do more for your than just caring for your wounds." She furrowed her brows and tried to hold back the tears.

You reached out and gently touched her cheek. "It's okay. I owe so much to you. You saved my life. I couldn't ask for more. Thank you just for everything. I'm so happy that I remember you now and that I can thank you for being there for me, on those days and now. You are so precious." As you spoke to her she weren't able to hold back the tears and smiled at the same time. Then, all in a sudden, her eyes went wide and she stared you dead in the eye. A jolt like lightning shot through you, you were immediately highly alerted. "What's wrong??"

"My god, you... you are-" She was interrupted by the rattling of the door. She hastily wiped away her tears and shuffled a bit away from you to keep the impression that you were just another patient. She collected her medical equipment and crammed it in her case as the door opened.

"You're time's up, nurse. Get out." The guard stepped aside to give her enough space to slip outside. Before she went around the corner she gave you quick look and a small smile, then she disappeared. The guard said nothing, just stared down at you and closed the door again, leaving you alone in the dark with your thoughts and the silence.


	9. Chapter 9

It's been a week now since you disappeared. Tony had found several bugs placed in his system that surveyed everything happening in the lab. It turned out most of them didn't work properly so they were useless but one did its job, a simple digital wiretap that recorded everything that was said. That was how they found out about you. Tony cursed and kicked stuff through his lab, angry with himself that this happened. Everyone was just exhausted, haven't slept properly and totally at their limits. They had to rest, otherwise their brains would force them to. So they agreed on shifts to supervise the program Tony installed to search JARVIS for the virus that kept your bracelet from working. Unfortunately Loki was not common with the earth technology and was clearly not in the state of mind to learn it now properly, so he could do nothing, and it was killing him. He tried to distract himself with training in the gym until he was completely drained, tried to read books but that didn't work at all. It was day seven now and after some heavy training he came out of his shower, slipped into his simple brown cloth trousers and green linen tunic, he stared out of the window. The silence was pressing down hard on him and he looked over to your winged chair. Your headphones were laying on it, just where you left them. He grabbed them, put them on and ordered, "JARVIS, play me Y/N's favorite music on this device of her." He closed his eyes, listening to your most loved songs, his wet hair soaking up the fabric on his back, intensively thinking of you.

***

You didn't know how many days had passed, it was just you being awake and falling asleep. But you got four meals in your cell so you assumed it were four days. Together with the time you were forced in that lab chair you guessed it could be about one week now. It was so hard for you to bear the silence. You hated it, so you were playing music in your head, all the songs you knew the lyrics of. You startled as your door opened. Fieberbrunn was standing in the door, looking down at you.

"I think we can continue." His face was blank. He turned around and ordered, "Los, bringt sie wieder ins Labor. Aber achtet mir darauf, dass ihr ihre Wunden nicht aufreißt, das ist momentan nicht notwendig."

You wrapped the linen blanket tightly around your body like a towel as the guard stepped in. He grabbed you by your hair and pushed you along the corridors back to the lab. The sight of the chair let your heart rate rise. I tried to protest but the guard's grip was too tight and he just pushed you forwards. You were forced into the chair again, shackles closing around your wrists, ankles and a broad strap over your arms and chest. Fieberbrunn sat down in front of you and while he pierced you with several needles and stuck a bunch of electrodes onto you again, ripping your blanket down to your hips to connect you with the monitors he explained, "We will make some exercises now to prove if my father was right with his suspicions. The questions will not be about something you know, so you can't give wrong answers. The only wrong answer is not answering at all, and for that you have to get punished. Do you understand?"

Reluctantly you nodded. When he was done and turned on all the monitors, he turned around and looked at you. His gaze was empty, almost bored.

"Look at me. How do you think do I feel right now?"

"Bored. You don't really want to be here."

"Ah. Fine. Perceptive." He tapped something on one of the monitors. A little tingling shot through the electrodes on the shaved parts of your head.

"Wh- what are you doing?"

"You don't ask questions, you answer them. You are not allowed to speak unless you are asked a question." He didn't bother to look at you while he set up those rules. Studying the monitors he seemed to be pleased with what he saw. He turned one of your hands around in the shackles, palm upwards and laid his palm onto it. Instinctively you wanted to pull away but couldn't, so you were forced to touch his hand.

"Now, tell me again, how do I feel. And don't answer right away. Concentrate, then answer." He said with the same bored voice and the same blank face.

You stared at him, but what you felt didn't suit to what you saw. Confused you said, "You... you are full of... anticipation. Curiosity. Hope, that your father was right. That you could fulfill his heritage. That you would have made him proud. And hatred, towards the Soldier. You want him dead, but you had to accept you are not in charge of such decisions. And... you are lucky that you aren't. You don't want the responsibility for all that's happening round here-"

His eyed widened and he retreated his hand in shock, pressing it to his chest.

You must have looked as shocked as he. "Why- why do I know this? How? Is it true? What is wrong with me??!"

Usually you should get punished for asking questions but Fieberbrunn was so in awe, he didn't realize the violation of his rules.

"Mein Gott, es ist wahr. Er hatte recht! Die ganze Zeit lang hatte er recht! Ich muss das sofort melden!" he exclaimed.

"What? What are you saying? What's going on here?!" Your questions were answered with silence. Fieberbrunn rushed over to grab the phone on the desk. He was speaking something in German, totally excited like a child. You stared down at your hands as if they would start to glow or sparkle any second. How did you know that? Does that come from the electrodes? What kind of tricks is he playing on you? Fieberbrunn hang up and came back. He run several tests with you for hours. You had to touch his hand, the hands of random lab persons. He regulated the electrodes and varied the stimuli to watch the differences in the outcome. You got the headache of your lifetime. As he recognized you getting too exhausted, he sent you back into your cell. He said he could only work on you properly if you were rested. The guard tore you down the corridors on your hair again, not bothering that you stumbled over the blood stained blanket and had to leave it behind. In your cell were a glass of that thick liquid and a protein bar waiting for you. In that moment you realized that you haven't felt hungry or thirsty since your last 'meal'. You crouched down on your makeshift 'bed', trying to hide your nudity and chewed on that rubbery bar as you heard music playing. You looked around to maybe find the source, but didn't see anything. It took you a while to get that you heard the music in your head. It was like you were listening to your favorite songs, you didn't consciously think of each song and concentrated on it, they just played along in your mind. And there was something else. ...Someone else. You closed your eyes to concentrate on that certain feeling.

"Y/N??"

You audibly gasped as you suddenly saw Loki standing directly in front of you, wearing your headphones. You totally forgot that you were completely naked as you stood up and stepped closer to him.

"No, don't touch me, this is just an illusion. If you try, the illusion will fade again." He looked all over you, brows furrowed and his eyes full of concern. "By the Allfathers, what have they done to you?"

You immediately hid your private parts and looked away, full of shame and agony.

"Y/N, listen, do you know where you are?"

Without looking at him you answered, "No, I woke up a factory hall, naked and blinded by some kind of injection. They said it was meant to stay for one hour but I was unconscious for three. There was a giant iron machine connected to a conveyor. This building is full of corridors, cells and laboratories. I... they gave me a drug that opened my mind to my memories." Your voice almost died in the swallowed tears. "Tell... please tell my uncle... Uncle Tones... that I love him. Still. And always." Your voice finally broke into crying.

"Keep calm, my dear. We will find you and bring you home. Come on, beautiful lady, look at me." His soft words encouraged you to look into his green blue eyes. "We will bring you home, to us. You are not alone."

You sobbed at his gentle promises. "Loki... Thank you. I-" you moved towards him and touched the illusion while you where speaking and the image of him disappeared in a shiny green glow. You came down to your knees, crying badly. You put your arms tightly around yourself since there was no one who could do that for you. As the tears slowly ebbed away and became more quiet again, you could still hear your beloved music. It made you smile and cry at the same time. Seeing his face again ignited your hope. You drew knew strength and said a quick thank you prayer. Just in this moment your door was opened and your guard took hold on your hair again, bringing you back to the lab. As you were strapped in that awful chair again, Fieberbrunn entered the lab.

"It looks like we don't have time to let you rest naturally. This will help." He held up a syringe with a cloudy blue liquid. Since you had no vascular access already he pushed the needle right into your arm. The cold injection run up your veins, letting them shine dark through your skin. It felt like a rapture, all your senses wide awake. The light was suddenly so bright and every sound so loud.

"This time we will see what you can do to others." Fieberbrunn explained as he put a simple chair in front of you. A guard brought another prisoner into the lab. He was in chains and overly confused. It was a man, around 50, looking totally devastated. As he realized that a young naked woman sat right in front of him, a dirty smile tugged on his lips. You felt so disgusted you just wanted to punch everyone in the face. Fieberbrunn stood beside you and turned your hand around again, palm upwards. He ordered the guard to place the prisoner's hand on yours. You wanted to pull away again, being disabled by the shackles. "Now," Fieberbrunn said to you, "make him cry."

Confused you looked at Fieberbrunn and back to the man in front of you. His eyes constantly wandering over your body. You felt his arousal and it made you sick.

"Go on. Concentrate on a feeling that makes you sad and send those feelings to him." Fieberbrunn instructed.

And you tried. You tried really hard. But no sad feelings were found inside you, just disgust. You loathed him so much it made your insides twist. Suddenly the expression in his face changed. His gazing stopped and he looked you straight in the eyes now. He wanted to pull his hand away but the guard didn't let him. He pressed his hand onto yours. Slowly he started to mirror you. It looked like he started to feel extremely uncomfortable in his skin. Then he turned pale within seconds. He leant to the side and threw up on the floor.

"Well, not exactly what I ordered but it that's fine as well." Fieberbrunn said with a pleased tone. A small nod towards the guard and the prisoner was dragged away again. But he didn't stop to stare at you all the way long, in complete shock. Then, a little girl was pushed into the lab. "Komm her. Setz dich hier auf diesen Stuhl und nimm die Hand dieser Frau." Fieberbrunn commanded and the girl came over, sat down on the chair and took your hand. She looked in your face and you didn't need to touch to feel her anxiety. "And now, make her cry. And I said CRY. Do what I told you or you get punished."

You stared at the girl for some seconds before you reacted, obviously too long. Fieberbrunn grabbed your face a slid a scalpel across your jawbone downwards. You and the girl simultaneously screamed. Shocked you looked at the girl that was covering the same spot on her face with her hand and then looked at it, as if she expected to see blood.

"Make her cry."

You concentrated and closed your eyes. As you opened them again the face of the little girl was decorated with the most beautiful smile, pure happiness. You only heard Fieberbrunn next to you sigh, and before you could look at him he pressed your head into the high backrest. He placed his scalpel on your collarbone pressed it hard into your flesh. You felt it scraping on the bone as you and the girl screamed and cried.

"See? That is crying."

This game went on for hours. New human lab rats, new commands. Every time you did not exactly what you were told you were either slapped or cut. At some point even Fieberbrunn started to get tired. He ordered a little break between the next prisoners. He rubbed his eyes and rolled a bit away in his office chair to pour himself a coffee.

This moment you saw something in your peripheral. Gently you turned your wrist around again and saw the soft green glow of the gem in your bracelet.

***

Just the second after Loki's connection got lost he rushed down to the lab. He flung the door opened and told the startled Tony and Bruce what just had happened. He repeated the description you gave him and they began searching for buildings fitting the parameters. He grabbed Tony by his arm to stop him and added, "Tony, she knows who you are. They made her remember."

Tony turned paper pale within 2 seconds.

"She didn't assumed I'd know it, too. She just said I should tell her uncle, Uncle Tones, she'd still loves him. And always will."

Tony took hold on Loki's shoulder as he fought against the tears. Regaining countenance he just managed to mutter "Thank you, Loki. Thank you.", then he turned to get the search on. Meanwhile the others came down to the lab and searched a radius of one hour distance with any vehicle for a factory that suited. After hours they could limit the results to four factories. They formed four teams and rushed to the landing site. Natasha and Clint took each one of Tony's cars, Steve hopped on his motorcycle and Bruce, Tony and Loki took the Quinn Jet. After half an hour of heavy reticence a green dot appeared on the map on one of the screens, accompanied by a modest 'ping'. The sounds ripped Tony immediately out of his thoughts. He nearly jumped at the screen, zooming the map in.

"Oh. My. God. We got her. WE GOT HER!!!" He screamed. Finally his program was able to delete the virus and your bracelet was activated again. You were in the factory where the Quinn Jet was already heading to. Immediately Loki and Bruce were at Tony's side, staring at the screen before they joy kicked in (for each in their own ways; Bruce was loudly cheering, Loki drew a deep breath and closed relieved his eyes as his lips formed a soft smile). Tony was already informing the other team members and they changed their route. Suddenly Tony was hit by horrific brainwave.

"JARVIS, turn out the gem on the bracelet, NOW!", he screamed at the screens.

***

Your began to fill up with tears as you saw your bracelet shimmering in that beautiful dark, warm green. You concentrated on not to spit out a relieve laugh and quickly looked over to Fieberbrunn to check if he saw something. Luckily he was studying a screen while he drank his coffee. You turned your wrist back again and hoped so badly that they would find you before someone noticed the sudden glowing. Just as you stopped moving Fieberbrunn turned around and came back to you. He put his mug down besides you and said, "Okay, for today we have one last test. It's an important one, fateful for both of you. Bringt sie rein!" he shouted over to the door.

Your eyes widened as you saw the guard pushing the Doc through the door, dirty and chained, with a bloody lip. Her expression was as shocked as yours.

You cleared your throat, "Is... isn't that the do-, uh, nurse that looked after me?" You tried to sound unknowing.

"Uh, yes, could be. We got several of them. She tried to wake up one of our cryostatic soldiers and has to get punished." Fieberbrunn pulled a chair over in front of you. The guard almost threw her onto the chair. She looked horrified. As Fieberbrunn turned away for just two seconds she mouthed 'I'm so sorry', but you didn't understand what she was apologizing for. He unchained her and paid attention to your hands now and you got thunderstruck.

"Warte, was... What is that?" He turned your wrist around and it felt like your heart would break through your ribcage any moment. But just in the second he turned your hand around to look at your bracelet the light got dimmer until it was gone completely. You didn't know what was worse; that he could have find out that this wasn't just some jewelry or that your little green spark of hope died right away after like three minutes. You felt your heart crumble inside your chest.

"Hm. I guess just some light reflection. Okay, let's get this done. Alright. Now, think of suicide."

You just stared at him. "I'm sorry, what?"

He looked you dead in the eye before he said, "I will let you get away with this once now. But I won't repeat myself again. I'm sure you know that feeling. Maybe thought of killing yourself in the last few days. I want you to conjure those feelings of pure and utter despair and project them on her. That is her punishment. And a final test of your skills. This task is not easy so you will have a few minutes more time. Start now."

Your mind felt like it was about to explode. What should you do? They were going to kill, that was out of the question. But you couldn't do it. How even? How should you bring someone only with your feelings to wanting to end one's life? You were torn apart. You didn't want to do this at any cost. No. Just no.

She felt what you were going through. She whispered, swallowing down the tears, "It's okay. I won't see tomorrow anyways. It's okay, sweetheart. I'm so sorry." She tried to share a smile.

Your mind was running in circles. No. No, you wouldn't do that. No, no, no, NO! Suddenly everything broke free. Everything they had done to you, the humiliation, the torture, the pain. It was like every single cell in your body was on fire. But before you could contain yourself you saw the wave of raging anger and hatred hit the Doc in front you. Her face was fury itself. She even moved too fast for Fieberbrunn to react. She jumped off the chair, grabbed it and smashed it right onto Fieberbrunn's head. The wooden chair shattered into pieces and while Fieberbrunn tried to chase away the stars he was seeing, the Doc took the scalpel from the tablet next you and rammed it into Fieberbrunn's chest. Just as she tore it out and got ready to stab it in again you heard a loud shot and she stopped mid-movement. The scalpel clattered on the floor tiles and she doubled over to the side, her eyes staring into void. Everything happened too fast, you had not a moment to process. The guard was rushing to you just as the lights went out and earpiercing sirens started to ring. For two seconds you were in darkness and as the red emergency light turned on you saw the guard standing still, mouth open before he got down on his knees and fell right on his face, a dark handled knife in his back. Behind him appeared Loki in his complete battle armor. He took back his dagger as he crossed the room towards you with like 3 steps. Though you were still naked and all over covered in cuts and bruises, your eyes were the only thing he looked at.

"Your saviour is here.", he said low and soothing as he cut open the leathery shackles that held you back. You were unable to speak, your mind on pause. He gently picked you up and you clasped onto his neck. You just shut your eyes, ignoring all the noise around you as he carried you through the corridors. Suddenly you saw bright light through your eyelids. You squinted into the sun and shielded your eyes with one hand. It felt you haven't seen the sun for years. The fresh air was wonderful and you sucked it into your lungs eagerly. Soon your eyes adjusted to the brightness and you looked around. Loki carried you straight to the Quinn Jet parking right outside. You heard a well-known noise and turned your head just to see Tony fly over you in his suit and landing in front of the Quinn Jet. It felt like someone would press the 'Play' button in your mind again. Suddenly you were so nervous. You wanted to run over to him and pull him into a tight hug, just like you remembered from the past. But how could you? Even if you'd explain it to him, would he even slightly believe you? You started trembling at the thought. Meanwhile you were only a few steps apart. Just as Loki carefully let your feet touch the ground again, Tony exited his suit, coming towards you. You had no idea what muscle to move next, completely overcharged. He kept eye contact with an expression that confused you; it looked like relief, but so much more intense. As he was only one step away, he opened his arms and with the next step towards you he embraced you dearly.

"Honeybun.", was all he whispered into the nape of your neck. It hit you like lightning, you haven't heard that word for about a decade; couldn't even really remember it but, damn, it had impact. One single word, a simple nickname was all you needed to completely lose it. Your skin was all chills, hesitantly closing your arms around Tony's torso.

"Uncle Tones", you said, your voice breaking away under the heavy tears. "I missed you."

You didn't care that you were naked, you didn't care that all the cuts burned because of the hug. You weren't sure if you would ever get out there again. If you would get the chance to see your uncle again, the last bit of family remaining. But just all that happened right now. You hoped so much this wasn't just an illusion or a dream.

Tony was the first one to pull away. He gently laid a hand on the side of your face.

"Damn, bun, you look shit. Let's get you home, kiddo.", and a broad, genuine grin appeared on his face.


End file.
